Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings July 8, 2017 THIS DAY IN REDS HISTORY 1980-Ken Griffey, Sr. is named the All-Star Game Most Valuable Player in Los Angeles. Griffey, Sr. goes 2-for-3 with a home run in the Midsummer Classic MLB.COM Late homers from Votto, Schebler not enough By Jarrid Denney and Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | 1:43 AM ET + 58 COMMENTS PHOENIX -- For the second week in a row, the D-backs gave Zack Greinke the ball with hopes of ending a three-game losing streak. Once again, he delivered. Greinke picked up his 11th win of the season on Friday night as the D-backs topped the Reds, 6-3, at Chase Field. Greinke struck out seven while surrendering four hits with one walk and seven strikeouts over seven scoreless innings. With the win, Greinke is 9-0 at Chase Field this season, surpassing Patrick Corbin's franchise record for most consecutive wins at home to start a season. "After a tough series in L.A., we had the right guy step up in Zack Greinke," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said. "He let us get our legs under us offensively, and went out there and just threw zeros up all night. Shutdown innings after we scored runs and allowed us to get out to a 6-0 lead. When a No. 1 guy is on board, you really start to appreciate these moments." Greinke, a career .210 hitter, helped his own cause with an RBI single in the fourth to score Brandon Drury. Three D-backs players delivered RBI doubles, and Drury went 2-for-2 with two doubles, two walks and two runs. Reds starter Tim Adleman tossed five innings and struck out four while surrendering four runs (three earned). Adam Duvall tallied two of the four hits that Cincinnati struck against Greinke. "He was using his slider very well," Duvall said of Greinke. "I think a couple of times, he just painted away. It's a pitch that looks like it's going to be down, but stays right there. I felt like he started spotting up as the game went on, which made it more difficult to hit, obviously." Joey Votto smashed his National League-best 25th home run of the season off of T.J. McFarland in the ninth to cut the lead, and Scott Schebler added a solo shot off of Jake Barrett later in the inning. With the tying run on deck, Fernando Rodney came on with two outs in the ninth and forced Tucker Barnhart to ground out to second to end the game. MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Seeing double: Jeff Mathis set the tone for Arizona early and pushed the D-backs out to an early 2-0 lead with a lined grounder down the left-field line that found the corner. That double scored Drury, who two batters earlier had lined his own RBI double, from second. Goldy goes deep: Three innings after Billy Hamilton robbed him of extra-bases with a stellar running catch, Paul Goldschmidt responded with a 401-foot homer to right field that landed next to the Cincinnati bullpen. Goldschmidt's solo shot -- which Statcast™ projected at a 102.3 mph exit velocity -- gave the D-backs a 4-0 lead. "It was good," Goldschmidt said. "Was just trying to get another run on there or get on base and I was able to hit it good enough and get it out of there. I had two strikes out was trying to protect -- it ended up being a fastball up the middle and I was able to get enough of it." QUOTABLE "He did a really nice job. He limited what we were able to do. We were never really able to get terribly excited against him." -- Reds manager Bryan Price, on Greinke HAMILTON TAKES HIT FROM GOLDSCHMIDT Before he cleared the fence in the fifth inning, Goldschmidt powered an opposite-field drive to right-center field in the first inning. But he came up empty when Hamilton made a very long run to catch the ball as he crashed into the wall. According to Statcast™, it was a four-star catch. It had a 35 percent catch probability as Hamilton had to cover 103 feet in 5.3 seconds. His Sprint speed was 30 feet per second. WHAT'S NEXT Reds: When the series resumes at 10:10 p.m. ET on Saturday night at Chase Field, rookie Luis Castillo will make his fourth start, still seeking his first big league win. In a 5-3 defeat to the Rockies on Monday, Castillo gave up four earned runs and nine hits over 5 2/3 innings with one walk and eight strikeouts. D-backs: The D-backs hope to build on Greinke's strong outing for the second game of the series at 7:10 p.m. MST on Saturday night. Arizona will send Taijuan Walker to the mound, fresh off a July 2 start in which he gave up one run to the Rockies over seven innings in a no-decision. Jarrid Denney is a reporter for MLB.com based in Phoenix. Mark Sheldon has covered the Reds for MLB.com since 2006, and previously covered the Twins from 2001-05. Follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon and Facebook and listen to his podcast. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Reds sign top pick Greene to deal By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | July 7th, 2017 + 38 COMMENTS PHOENIX -- Reds general manager Dick Williams and the club squeezed all it could out of the deadline to sign No. 2 overall pick Hunter Greene on Friday afternoon. Ultimately, the deal was reached as the club inked Greene to a $7.23 million bonus. It was the largest Draft bonus since bonus-pool restrictions were instituted in 2012 and an all-time record for a high school pitcher. The deadline to sign '17 MLB Draft picks was 5 p.m. ET. "I was pretty stressed there today," Williams said. "You never know until you dot the i's and cross all the t's. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say it came down to the final seconds instead of minutes." Williams remained in Colorado after the team left for Arizona so he could be in direct contract with Reds CEO Bob Castellini, who was there on business. Reds amateur scouting director Chris Buckley was also a point person in talks. Greene, 17, was the only player picked in the top 10 of this year's Draft to remain unsigned. Selected out of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif., the right-handed pitcher was ranked as the No. 1 prospect in the Draft by MLBPipeline.com. He is also a veteran of MLB's Urban Youth Academy in Compton, and he was a member the 2015 United States' gold-medal-winning 18- and-under Baseball World Cup club. Despite wanting to sign Greene, however, Williams and his group were willing to walk away if a deal couldn't get done. The Reds, which would have received the No. 3 overall pick in the 2018 Draft as compensation, did not want to incur any penalties for going over their bonus pool allotment of $13,658,400 to sign their top 11 picks. Greene's deal, Williams said, got them right around that number without going over. "Anybody that aspires to be a GM should have shadowed me today. That would have disabused them of the notion, I think," Williams joked. "It was just tough because there was a lot at stake. What made going through today a little easier was knowing that Bob Castellini, Walt Jocketty, my staff, Chris Buckley, we were all a united front on where we wanted to go with this negotiation. That made it easy. Internally, we were in agreement. We were at peace with where we were willing to go. If it didn't work out, we were at peace with the consequences. "That being said, our strong preference was to get this young man signed, because we think he is a generational talent and we really think he's going to have a positive impact on our team." Greene has already been to Cincinnati and passed his physical. The next step remains fluid, but he will either report to Rookie-level Billings or the AZL Reds in Goodyear, Ariz. "We think he's got impeccable character and pretty impressive on-field ability," Williams said. "He's the kind of guy we want to sign and build around. The guys we've taken at the top of the Draft the last two years, not just the first round but top couple of rounds, are going a long towards rebuilding this franchise the way we want going forward. Hunter is a big part of that." Mark Sheldon has covered the Reds for MLB.com since 2006, and previously covered the Twins from 2001-05. Follow him on Twitter @m_sheldon and Facebook and listen to his podcast. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Finnegan's season over after new injury Reds lefty has surgery on non-throwing shoulder after boating mishap By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | July 7th, 2017 + 11 COMMENTS PHOENIX -- Because of a second injury to his left arm, the Reds already weren't optimistic that left-hander pitcher Brandon Finnegan would return to the rotation this season. But the news on Friday about a freak injury to Finnegan's right arm clinched that his 2017 season is over.