Shane Baz dazzles the Reds in Game 4; Giants one win away from the promised land
From the first pitch, Giants starter Sean Baz looked like a man intent on shortening Cincinnati’s season, attacking the zone with a heavy fastball and just enough offspeed to keep the Reds guessing. He faced only 28 batters over seven innings, allowing a lone run on four hits while striking out six and walking two, chewing through the Reds’ order with the poise of a veteran far older than his years.
On the other side, Reds right–hander Osvaldo Bido did all a home pitcher can reasonably do in October – keep the ball in the yard, keep his club in the game, and pray for a big swing that never quite came. Bido matched zeroes with Baz into the middle innings, scattering four hits and three walks while punching out seven in seven grinding frames, his 51 pitches in the zone a testament to his refusal to nibble with the season hanging over the rail.
For awhile it looked like a reprise of Game 3’s insanity, as Jake McCarthy led off the Reds’ half of the first inning with a deep blast for a solo shot. But that was to be the reds’ only run and in the top of the second the Giants matched the Reds when Sal Perez drew a walk and later scored on Bryson Stott’s single. Nolan Arenado tried to score from second on the same hit, but was gunned down at the plate on a laser beam from Reds’ outfielder Max Kepler.
It was the top of the eighth inning before the Giants cracked the stalemate with the kind of inning that never looks like much on the scorecard but looms large in a short series. A leadoff double by the red-hot Francisco Lindor, followed immediately by Kyle Tucker’s RBI single, pushed across the tie-breaking run as orange–clad fans behind the visitors’ dugout erupted into a small but noisy island in a sea of red.
From there, Giants manager Brian Libby turned the ball over to his late–inning weapon, Mason Miller, and told him to make the one–run margin stand up against the heart of Cincinnati’s order. Miller recorded the final six outs, yielding just two hits with no walks and two strikeouts, his velocity and tempo giving the Reds no time to breathe, let alone mount a sustained rally.
For the Reds, the loss will linger not because they were outclassed, but because they were out–executed in the handful of moments that separate a World Series classic from winter. Six hits and three walks yielded only a single run, and a night spent hitting into routine grounders and fly balls felt like a betrayal of an offense that had, just one game previously, so often thrived on chaos and crooked numbers.
The Giants, meanwhile, achieved a 3–1 series lead and the knowledge that they now have three cracks at finishing the job, two of them (if necessary) in front of their own crowd. If Game 4 is remembered as the night the 2025 World Series tilted decisively west, it will be because a young right–hander named Baz and a bullpen spearheaded by Miller made a one–run edge look as safe as a blowout, leaving the Reds with one last chance to postpone the inevitable.
