A power surge struck Great American Ball Park on Tuesday night, as the Reds and Brewers combined for seven home runs over the game’s first five innings. Cincinnati hit the last and most crucial, however — a Joey Votto two-run shot that provided the winning margin in the Reds’ 8-6 victory and snapped a four-game skid against Milwaukee.
“I think we hit 15-16 balls right on the screws today,” said Reds manager Bryan Price. “Really good offensively, I thought. There were certainly some big blows with the home runs, but just a lot of good, quality at-bats. A lot of barrel-on balls.”
A day after sinking into a 3-0 deficit in the first inning against the Cardinals, Cincinnati jumped on Milwaukee’s Junior Guerra early. Billy Hamilton hit Guerra’s third pitch for his first leadoff home run since June 15, 2014 (also against the Brewers), Adam Duvall hit a two-run homer three batters later and Devin Mesoraco picked up an RBI single for a 4-0 lead after one inning.
Milwaukee stormed back over the next two innings with a trio of homers against Reds starter Tim Adleman. Manny Pina and Orlando Arcia hit solo shots in the second inning before Travis Shaw slugged a three-run homer in the third, his 16th of the season, to give the Brewers a 5-4 advantage.
“Our offense usually doesn’t go down quietly,” said Shaw, who has homered in back-to-back games. “We knew in this ballpark it wasn’t over. [A four-run lead] is never going to be enough here.”
The five runs allowed marked the most Adleman had given up in a start since the Rockies piled up six against him on May 20.
“I made some pitches out over the plate, some bad pitches,” Adleman said. “And they didn’t just hit singles, they hit the ball out of the ballpark. So definitely a difficult lineup to navigate through.”
Votto and the Reds bailed out their starting pitcher with a three-run fifth inning, knocking Guerra from the game in the process. Cincinnati’s last three relievers — Tony Cingrani, Michael Lorenzen and Raisel Iglesias — gave up just two combined hits over the final three innings to help close out the game, with the help of Scott Schebler making a great catch to cap it off.
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