CINCINNATI — As Reds relief pitcher Josh Osich warmed up and three Padres baserunners stood watching, lightning flashed on the other side of the Ohio River that runs just beyond Great American Ball Park’s right field and separates Ohio from Kentucky.
The next flash was closer, and the baseball game being played on a coolish summer night that was about to become wet had been flipped.
As Trent Grisham crossed home plate after his first career grand slam into those right-field seats gave the Padres a 7-5 lead, lightning lit up the sky even more.
Just about the time Wil Myers was making the final out of the fifth inning, being tagged out as he slid into second base while trying to steal second base, a drizzle transformed into a downpour.
Loud thunder commenced and became more frequent. A lightning show played all around.
And the teams kept playing, through Tim Hill’s perfect bottom of the fifth and into a second Padres at-bat in the sixth — until another flash lit up the ballpark, elicited a screech from the crowd and sent many hustling for cover.
A few seconds later, with Jorge Mateo batting against Cionel Perez, the umpires waved players in from the field.
It seemed more rain fell in the next hour than San Diego gets in a winter. Laps could have been swam in the warning track. A lake formed beyond shortstop. Small but insistent waterfalls streamed from the upper decks onto the field level seats.
After a delay of one hour, 33 minutes, the game was called and the Padres had their 10th victory in 11 games and their fourth straight series win.
And Joe Musgrove, who allowed four runs in the first and another in the third and lasted just four innings, got the win.
It was a lot shorter and lot happier night than it figured to be early.
After a 37-minute rain delay and a scoreless top of the first inning, the Padres were down 4-0 after one inning.
With the major leagues’ homer-happiest ballpark helping far more than it hurt, the Padres came back.
Great American, which measures 325 feet to the right-field pole and 328 to left, was yielding 3.2 home runs a game at the start and gave up six before the rain came.
Grisham’s line drive, an estimated 364 feet at a mere 98.2 mph and with a launch angle of 20 degrees, all well below the MLB averages for a home run, was his second of the night and the fourth hit by the Padres.
Back-to-back homers by Grisham and Myers in the second inning cut halfway into the Reds’ lead. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s solo shot on the first pitch of the third inning made it 4-3.
As if any team in the middle of a long season wouldn’t take a shortened victory, the Padres were especially grateful given they used eight relievers to cover nine innings Tuesday when scheduled starter Blake Snell was scratched with an illness.
After Wednesday’s long first inning, it seemed the Padres were destined to be optioning and recalling more arms from El Paso by midnight.
Everything leaked on Musgrove in the first inning, as the Reds took a 3-0 lead before an out was made.
Musgrove began by walking Jonathan India on a slider that was clearly in the zone but called a ball. Two pitches later, Jesse Winker flared a cutter off the thin part of his bat into center field. Three pitches after that, a fastball Musgrove left in the heart of the plate was hit just over the wall in right field by Nick Castellanos.
Joey Votto followed with a double midway up the wall in center field, which brought pitching coach Larry Rothschild to the mound for a one-sided conversation.
Musgrove followed with his first out, a grounder to the right side that moved Votto to third. After Musgrove walked Tucker Barnhart, Kyle Farmer’s fly ball to center field made it 4-0.
By the time he got Shogo Akiyama on a fly ball to left field, Musgrove had thrown 37 pitches. The only Padres pitcher to throw more in an inning this season was Blake Snell, who took 38 while recording just two outs in the first inning April 13 at Pittsburgh.
After taking 20 pitches to get through a scoreless second inning, Musgrove allowed a run in the third but did it quickly. Votto pulled a home run to the seats beyond right field on the second pitch of the inning, making it 5-3.
Musgrove retired the next six batters, his last of the night.
Hill replaced him at the start of the bottom of the fifth and after a one-out single by Castellanos got Votto to ground into a double play.
Hill got his first save as a Padre and just the fourth of his career.
