September 17, 1969, San Diego: Reds 10, Padres 5 (box score)

Like offense? You’d have loved this one. Thirty-one hits. Six batters collected three base knocks — five of them played, as you might have imagined, for the visiting Reds.

Cincinnati scored early and often against starter Joe Niekro (and everyone else the Padres sent out there, come to think of it). They tallied single runs in the first and seventh innings, and two each in the third, fourth, fifth, and eighth.

The Reds were, in a word, relentless.

Midway through the game, the Padres trailed, 7-0, and were burning through their second pitcher. In the bottom of the fifth, they finally at least tried to get off the mat. With one out, Cito Gaston singled off Reds starter Jack Fisher. Chris Cannizzaro followed with an RBI double to center and then scored on pinch hitter Jim Williams’ double.

The Padres added another run in the sixth on consecutive singles by Ollie Brown, Nate Colbert, and Van Kelly. Two more runs in the eighth made the final score 10-5, almost respectable if you weren’t paying close enough attention.

Tagged as: Baseball, cincinnati_reds, cito_gaston, jack_fisher, joe_niekro, nate_colbert, padres, reds, san_diego_padres