Reds Erase Six-Run Ninth-Inning Deficit to Stun Giants, First Such Comeback Since 1958

The Cincinnati Reds trailed the San Francisco Giants by six runs with three outs left on Wednesday afternoon. Twenty minutes later, they had won. Cincinnati scored seven runs in the top of the ninth inning, punctuated by a grand slam from Eugenio Suárez and a go-ahead pinch-hit single from Tyler Stephenson, to beat the San Francisco Giants 10-9 and avoid a three-game sweep at Oracle Park.

It was the first time the Cincinnati Reds had won a game in which they trailed by six or more runs entering the ninth inning since May 8, 1958, against the Chicago Cubs. For the Giants, it was worse: the franchise had been 2,208-0 all time when leading by six or more runs entering the ninth before Wednesday, according to the official MLB.com recap of the collapse. That streak is now over.

The numbers

• Giants led 9-3 entering the bottom half of the eighth and carried that lead into the ninth
• Reds scored seven runs on five hits in the top of the ninth
• Héctor Rodríguez hit two home runs, including a leadoff shot in the ninth that landed in San Francisco Bay
• Eugenio Suárez's grand slam off reliever Dylan Smith cut the deficit to 9-8
• Jose Trevino's sacrifice fly tied the game before Stephenson's single put Cincinnati ahead
• Emilio Pagán struck out the side to close it out and preserve the win for Tony Santillan

Rodríguez, a rookie outfielder called up from Triple-A less than a month ago, opened the inning by driving a 115 mph line drive over the right-field wall, his second home run of the game and the shot that started the unraveling. Smith relieved Spencer Bivens — who had recorded no outs — and promptly served up Suárez's slam. Trevino's fly ball tied it at 9, and with Ke'Bryan Hayes due up, Reds manager Terry Francona instead sent Stephenson to the plate as a pinch hitter. He lined a single to give Cincinnati the lead for good, according to the box score from ESPN.

How the Giants got here

San Francisco built its 9-3 lead on a two-run homer by Jonah Cox, a tiebreaking home run into McCovey Cove from Rafael Devers, a two-run shot by Shay Whitcomb — his first as a Giant — and a bases-clearing pinch-hit double from Drew Gilbert. Starter Logan Webb had allowed just two runs over six innings and departed with what looked like a comfortable cushion.

The game had already gone sideways for San Francisco once before the ninth inning meltdown. In the first inning, first-year manager Tony Vitello was ejected after arguing a check-swing call against Suárez, ruled by first-base umpire Ben May and enforced by an ejection from home-plate umpire Ryan Blakney — his fourth career ejection and first since July 22, according to MLB.com's account of the ejection. Vitello, hired over the winter after the Giants moved on from longtime manager Bob Melvin, watched the collapse play out from the clubhouse.

The loss extended a strange thread through San Francisco's season: the Giants remain the only team in the majors without a three-game sweep in 2026, and Wednesday marked their fifth failed chance to complete one, a point Vitello himself had noted before the game went final, per NBC Sports Bay Area's analysis of the loss. The Giants fell to 54-79 on the season. Cincinnati, playing out a non-contending year of its own under Francona, improved to 63-71.

Reaction

Vitello did not attempt to soften the moment afterward.

"Don't really have a word for it. It's more than unfortunate."

Webb, who had pitched well enough to win, put the loss in the plainest terms available to a starting pitcher who has no control over what happens after he leaves the mound. "It kind of sucks," he said. "You've just got to show up tomorrow and try to win." Smith, who allowed the grand slam, took responsibility directly: "I didn't get ahead like I typically do. … I wish I could have that one back."

On the Cincinnati side, the moment belonged partly to a decision. Francona's choice to lift Hayes for Stephenson paid off immediately, and the manager afterward praised the swing that delivered it, saying of the young hitter's approach, "He's got such good hitter's hands. If he can just relax and swing at strikes, he'll do some damage" — remarks captured in the Reds' own postgame video archive, filed under the franchise's account of the game.

What happens next

Neither team carries postseason stakes into the final five weeks of the season — both sit well below .500, and the National League wild-card race is currently being led by clubs several games clear of either roster. What Wednesday changes is smaller and, in its way, more permanent: it rewrites a page of each franchise's record book. For the Giants, it is now the worst ninth-inning collapse in the 68-year history of the San Francisco era of the franchise, and a second consecutive rocky season for a team trying to establish a new identity under Vitello after parting ways with Melvin. For the Reds, it is a signature moment in an otherwise forgettable year, and one more data point in the ongoing audition for a rookie outfielder — Rodríguez — who has now hit multiple home runs in a game twice in his first month in the majors. Both clubs return to action Thursday to close out August, with the Giants opening a new series shorthanded in their bullpen after committing five relievers to Wednesday's loss.