Well into a long day, Matt McLain makes an incredible play

BOSTON — “Let’s face it,” Cincinnati Reds manager Terry Francona said. “That’s a long day. When you’re down for most of it, it gets longer.”

Reds players reported to Fenway Park around 11 a.m. on Wednesday to begin preparing for the resumption of the suspended Game 2 of the series. The Reds went on to blow a lead and lose that game. Then, they waited a few hours before picking up Game 3. For most of the series finale, the Reds were trailing and the offense wasn’t getting anything going.

It was a long day.

Around 9 p.m. on Wednesday, around 10 hours after the players arrived at the ballpark, the Reds delivered one of their best defensive plays of the season and one of their smartest plays of the season. Shortstop Matt McLain fielded a ball in left field that bounced off the Green Monster, made a heads up throw from to beat the would-be go-ahead runner with a throw to third base and took away a triple.

The Reds did a lot of good things on Wednesday night as they won the series finale, 8-4. Nick Martinez followed a near no-hitter with another strong start, and Christian Encarnacion-Strand delivered a grand slam. After the game, Francona shifted the spotlight back to that play in the seventh.

“My funnest moment of the whole night was when Hays tried to get that ball and you look up and Friedl and (McLain) are surrounding it,” Francona said. “To me, that’s baseball. They’re trying.”

With a runner on second in the bottom of the seventh inning and the Reds up by two runs, Red Sox first baseman Romy Gonzalez hit a high fly ball to left field that was heading toward the Green Monster.

Austin Hays jumped as high as he could to try to bring down the acrobatic catch. But when he missed, the ball clanked off the wall and started rolling fast back to the left field grass. Friedl and McLain were anticipating that. They were there.

“Nobody would have thought anything if (McLain) wasn’t there,” Francona said. “That to me is winning baseball. I was fired up about that.”

Francona said that he has seen shortstops field the ball off the wall in left field at Fenway Park before. But typically, it’s the home shortstop. McLain, who has only played six games in Boston, has never seen a play like that here.

The Reds discussed this contingency at the start of the series.

‘We had a meeting about that,” Santiago Espinal said. “We wanted to make sure the shortstop was out there just in case.”

One talking point in the meeting was that if a ball kicked off the Green Monster, go attack it.

Elly De La Cruz is the Reds’ shortstop. When the Reds’ had this meeting, they didn’t know yet that the Reds would have a suspended Game 2 and therefore De La Cruz would DH the series finale in what was essentially a doubleheader. McLain could have glossed over the detail of what the shortstop does on line drives off the Green Monster because he likely wasn’t going to be playing shortstop.

But McLain didn’t. He was ready for the moment. McLain’s throw to third base beat Gonzalez and ended a potential game-tying rally for the Red Sox.

“Those are the little things you’ve got to do to win games,” Espinal said. “Everyone focused on the big things. We’ve been focusing on the little things. Doing things right. That’s what people done see. You can win games on defense. That’s what we did today.”

Francona also made sure to give Friedl credit. McLain made the play, but Friedl hustled to put himself in position to do the same thing.

“(Friedl) is a kid that has been playing every day,” Francona said. “He’s beat up. That to me, that got me going.”

McLain hustled too, and he also showed off his very underrated arm. His arm, speed and IQ were all on display.

“It was textbook,” Hays said. “It looked like he had done it before. You talk about hustling, playing the game hard and playing the game the right way. And when you go over something before a series and talk about a play that could happen and you execute it out there, that isn’t luck. It’s winning baseball.”