Asked to get four outs in a one-run game, Emilio Pagán gave up a game-tying homer to Wilyer Abreu with two outs in the ninth Saturday against the Red Sox.
Pagán was asked to go more than one inning just twice last year, largely because bad things happened both times (one blown save in the ninth and one loss in extra innings). That was again the case today. With some help from home plate umpire CB Bucknor, who singlehandedly called out Trevor Story on a check swing that was very borderline, Pagán was able to bail Tony Santillan out of an eighth-inning jam, but the homer in the ninth resulted in a blown save. He did get the final out from there to send the game into extra innings. After signing a two-year, $20 million deal over the winter, Pagán’s closing gig in Cincinnati is pretty safe; it’d take a few of these in the first month of the season to open things up for Santillan or someone else in the Cincinnati pen.