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Cincinnati
Reds manager Dusty Baker, right, congratulates
Cincinnati Reds' Shin-Soo Choo
(17) after Choo hit a solo home run off
Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Brandon
McCarthy in the first
inning Wednesday in Cincinnati.
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Reds hang on after offense's early eruption
Choo homers on
four-hit night; Chapman delivers six-out save
reds.com
CINCINNATI -- Somehow a perfectly smooth rout turned into a
gray-hair-inducing, antacid-chomping experience for the Reds on
Wednesday night.
Sure, the Reds came out on top with a 10-7 victory over the D-backs for
their eighth win in the past 11 games, but a simple box score says
little about the journey it took to get there. Cincinnati had an 8-0
lead through four innings only to hang on and escape.
"Crazy," said third baseman Todd Frazier, who had a clutch RBI single
in the eighth inning for insurance. "I get up there and I'm talking to
[Wil] Nieves, the catcher. I'm like, 'what a game.' We're laughing at
each other. It's humbling. It's weird. It's confusing at times. All in
all, you try to win no matter what. You get the 'W' and you're happy at
the end."
What made it crazy? Besides the nearly blown lead, the Reds needed
Aroldis Chapman to notch his first-ever two-inning save when he took
over in the top of the eighth for an injured Jonathan Broxton. Chapman
also had to hit for the first time in his career because manager Dusty
Baker did not properly double-switch when replacing Broxton. Every Reds
starter had a hit among their 15 total. That included Shin-Soo Choo's
near-cycle four-hit night and Frazier's hit in the eighth, which came
on one of the ugliest swings ever seen.
Choo started the Reds' first inning by lifting a 1-0 pitch from Brandon
McCarthy for a fly ball that carried just over the left-field fence. It
was Choo's sixth leadoff homer of the season and 11th for his career.
Using four-straight two-out hits in the second inning, including Mike
Leake's RBI ground-rule double and Choo's two-run single, the Reds
upped their lead to 4-0.
Three straight one-out hits in the third inning, including Devin
Mesoraco's two-run single, made it a 7-0. Choo doubled and scored on
Joey Votto's RBI single in the fourth inning for an eighth run.
Leake retired his first 10 batters until Martin Prado hit a one-out
single in the fourth. Arizona made the game interesting with a four-run
fifth inning against Leake. Following a pair of one-out singles,
pinch-hitter Jason Kubel hit a two-out, two-run single to right field.
On the very next pitch,Adam Eaton hit a two-run homer. Leake was
finished after six innings with four runs and six hits, no walks and
three strikeouts.
"It was a tough one," Leake said. "Being up 8-0 and then ending up
being a stressful game, it stinks. But at least we came out ahead."
Arizona added another run in the seventh against Manny Parra and J.J.
Hoover, and the ball was given to Broxton for the eighth. Gerardo Parra
led off with a drive to left field. Originally ruled a double off of
the wall, the play was reviewed on video replay by umpires and ruled a
homer.
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