CINCINNATI — Roughly four hours before first pitch, Allan Winans walked onto an empty field at Great American Ballpark and took out his phone to capture the scene.
The right-hander then walked to the mound to inspect his workplace for Monday night, his first big league action since last July.
If Winans was visualizing his start, it probably looked like how the first three innings actually played out.
And then Elly De La Cruz happened.
And even more troubling, the Yankees’ lack of hitting with runners in scoring position happened, turning the game into a 6-1 loss at a sweltering Great American Ballpark.
The Yankees (45-33) had their chances to put up a crooked number to support Winans, but instead went 0-for-12 with runners in scoring position to drop the series opener.
De La Cruz, meanwhile, finished the night a double short of the cycle and was responsible for four of the six Reds runs. He provided instant offense to spoil Winans’ night, combining power and speed to rope an RBI triple that tied the game in the fourth inning before he scored on a sacrifice fly to take the 2-1 lead.
In the fifth, after Winans had gotten knocked out of the game, the Reds superstar added an RBI single off Ian Hamilton to make it a 4-1 game.
And then in the eighth, De La Cruz took Tim Hill deep to put the Reds (41-38) ahead 5-1.
The only offense for the Yankees was Aaron Judge’s 28th home run of the season, a solo shot in the top of the first inning against lefty Nick Lodolo. The Yankees drove Lodolo’s pitch count up early, but could not take advantage as he and the Reds bullpen avoided the big hit the rest of the night.
In the second inning, the Yankees had runners on the corners with one out and could not score. In the third, Cody Bellinger led off with a double but was stranded at third. In the fifth, they had runners on first and second with one out but came up empty.
The most frustrating frame may have been the eighth, when the Yankees put runners on first and second with no outs before Giancarlo Stanton and Jazz Chisholm Jr. struck out and Anthony Volpe grounded out to end the threat.
That was no help to Winans, who was charged with four earned runs — one fewer than he allowed in 50 innings at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre this season — across 4 ¹/₃ innings. He cruised the first time through the order, flying through three innings on 24 pitches.
But then he hit Matt McLain with an errant sinker with one out in the fourth inning, bringing De La Cruz to the plate to get his big night underway.
The only runs the Reds scored that did not involve De La Cruz were Gavin Lux’s solo homer off Winans in the fourth inning and Jose Trevino’s infield single in the eighth that scored Spencer Steer from second base.