Reds blow 5-0 lead, but win in 10th inning
Tucker Barnhart’s PHOENIX — clutch 10th-inning single kept the Reds rolling on Friday night. Cincinnati’s playing so well these days that the only surprise was the catcher’s heroics were ever needed.
“It was a roller coaster,” Barnhart said. “We got out to a lead and then we gave it up.”
Barnhart was the biggest reason the Reds got it back for good. His two-out line drive in extra innings brought home Eugenio Suarez, leading the Reds to a 6-5 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Cincinnati’s Amir Garrett got out of a bases-loaded jam to earn his second save, retiring Pavin Smith on a slow grounder for the final out in Arizona’s home opener. The win pushed the Reds to a 6-1 record, which is the team’s best start since 1994.
The Diamondbacks trailed 5-0 before scoring three times in the seventh. Kole Calhoun’s two-out, two-run double was the big hit in the rally.
Eduardo Escobar then tied it with a towering tworun homer in the eighth off Lucas Sims.
The Reds came into Friday’s
game on an offensive roll, batting .316 with 14 homers during their 5-1 homestand to start the season. The team’s 57 runs through six games were a franchise record.
It didn’t take Cincinnati’s bats to get going in the desert: Jesse Winker smoked a double off the top of the wall near the 413-foot sign in right-center to start the game.
Winker gave the Reds a 1-0 lead in his second at-bat, slicing a single to left field that scored Barnhart. Tyler Naquin crushed a solo homer — his fifth in his first 21 at-bats this season — to push Cincinnati ahead 2-0 in the fourth. The Reds added two more runs in the fifth and another in the sixth.
Tyler Mahle started for the Reds, struck out six and didn’t give up a hit, but he also walked four and needed 92 pitches to get through four innings. Cionel Perez (1-0) got the win, retiring two batters in the ninth.