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Cincinnati
Reds...
Reds come back
in late inning surge
Phillips drives in five
CINCINNATI -- Even though the Reds seemingly showed no pulse, and
looked like they had no chance to beat the D-backs on Thursday, Brandon
Phillips had a stern message of rebuke for some of the fans.
Don’t write off the Reds, ever.
A thrilling 7-6 win over the D-backs came after scoring seven
unanswered runs over the sixth and seventh innings, aided mostly by
five RBIs from Phillips and the go-ahead RBI single by Todd Frazier in
the seventh. As Arizona pummeled starter Mike Leake for a 6-0 lead in
the top of the sixth, a loud cascade of boos came from the 21,620 fans
at Great American Ball Park.
“It started off ugly, but the ending of the game was beautiful,”
Phillips said. “I’m glad we won that game because I know a majority of
you all was going into panic mode, knowing we should be winning games
and we don’t have our best hitter in the lineup. I love the fans out
there, period, but I feel all the booing out there was unnecessary.
We’re in first place. We’re playing good baseball.
“I know we didn’t do our job early in the game. It’s not like we did it
on purpose. I feel like if you’re going to boo somebody, wait until the
end of the game is over. You never know when guys will come up in key
situations.”
Even before Phillips’ statement, the Reds already had themselves a huge
statement win and a big boost of confidence. It was their biggest
come-from-behind win since battling back from six runs down against the
Nationals on May 21, 2007.
The win was magnified because the loss would have been even more
crippling. Instead of gaining the four-game series split like it did,
Cincinnati was poised to lose three of four to a sub-.500 Arizona team
in its first series without the services of the injured Joey Votto. It
also kept the Reds a half-game ahead of the idle second-place Pirates
in the National League Central.
“They let you know that you can come back,” Reds manager Dusty Baker
said. “It shows us what we can do and what we have to do with the
personnel we have without Joey.”
Following a 46-minute rain delay at the start, D-backs lefty Joe
Saunders was leading, 2-0, in the third inning and dominating. Saunders
did not allow his first Reds hit until there were two outs in the
fifth, when Devin Mesoraco lifted a soft single into left field.
Aaron Hill hit a two-out solo homer to left field off of Leake in the
fifth, and Arizona blew the game open in a three-run sixth. Justin
Upton and Chris Young started the rally with back-to-back doubles for
one run, followed by Henry Blanco’s first homer of the season, a
two-run shot.
“We kind of gave them something in the sixth,” Baker said. “I was upset
there for a while because we were throwing guys ... nothing but
fastballs inside.”
The Reds finally perked to life offensively in the bottom of the sixth
as Drew Stubbs and Wilson Valdez began with back-to-back singles. On a
1-1 pitch, Phillips drove one inside the left-field foul pole for a
three-run home run that made it a three-run game.
It proved to be only the beginning of the comeback. Meanwhile, Alfredo
Simon had another strong relief outing with 1 1/3 scoreless innings for
his second win in his last three appearances. Simon has a 1.00 ERA over
his last 21 games.
The four-run seventh helped push the Reds into the lead. Against
reliever Bryan Shaw, pinch-hitter Xavier Paul and Stubbs drew
four-pitch walks to create sparks. In a key play, Valdez reached when
his grounder skipped under first baseman Paul Goldschmidt’s glove and
down the right-field line to score Paul. It was ruled an error on
Goldschmidt.
“It’s a play I’ve got to make and I wasn’t able to make it,”
Goldschmidt said. “Looking back on it, I probably tried to rush it and
in the back of my head tried to turn a double play when I really just
need to field that ball and get one out.”
After fouling off a 2-2 pitch from Shaw, Phillips tied the game with a
two-run double lined to center field, which gave him his five RBIs. Two
batters later with two outs, Frazier bested sidearm righty Brad Ziegler
with a lined RBI single to center that scored Phillips with the
go-ahead run.
“That was pretty fun,” Frazier said. “Especially in the beginning
there, we were a little dead. We couldn’t really put anything together.
Brandon was the spark plug and got us going. We know we can hit. Do we
want Joey in there? Of course. At the same time, we have to play
without him. We understand that. We have to put big innings together.
When we have runners on, we have to do something with it. We did today.”
Logan Ondrusek notched two outs in the eighth and Sean Marshall
finished the inning despite giving up back-to-back singles. Aroldis
Chapman had a clean ninth, with the last two batters striking out, for
his 15th save.
As Goldschmidt swung and missed to end it, this time fans roared with
approval.
“That win right there, it was a great win,” Phillips said. “It makes us
feel good to shut a lot of people up. We can just build off that win.
It’s time for us to start attacking teams earlier instead of waiting
until the last minute. The way we won the game just shows you that the
game is never over, regardless of the fact. You just have to keep on
going.”
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