Braves drop series finale at Cincinnati after wild ninth
Albert Almora Jr. delivered a walkoff, bases-loaded single as the Cincinnati Reds rallied to avert a threegame sweep with a 4-3 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves on Sunday.
Almora’s single against A.J. Minter (4-2) gave the Reds their first walkoff victory of the season. It came after the Braves tied the game in the top of the ninth on solo homers by Marcell Ozuna and Michael Harris II against Hunter Strickland (1-2).
Ozuna had two solo homers on the afternoon for the 14th multihomer game of his career.
Cincinnati, which scored three runs in the eighth to take a 3-1 lead, snapped a four-game losing streak overall and a 10-game home winless skid.
The game featured a pitchers’ duel between Cincinnati’s Luis Castillo and Atlanta’s Charlie Morton, who allowed one hit through seven shutout innings. He walked one and struck out 10.
Castillo yielded one run on six hits over seven innings with one walk and six strikeouts.
Ozuna homered with two outs in the fourth inning against Castillo to give the Braves an early lead.
Collin Mchugh relieved Morton to start the eighth inning and allowed consecutive singles to Almora and Nick Senzel with one out. Matt Reynolds followed with a run-scoring single to tie the game.
Brandon Drury then entered as a pinch-hitter and drove in two runs with a double to right field for the Reds’ first extra-base hit in the series.
Morton retired the first 12 batters faced in order and did not allow a hit until Max Schrock delivered a single up the middle to lead off the seventh inning.
Atlanta’s starting pitchers — Max Fried, Spencer Strider and Morton — struck out 25 batters in the threegame series across 20 innings.
The Braves trailed 3-1 before tying the game in the top of the ninth. Ozuna hit a leadoff homer against Strickland and Harris evened the score with a two-out, solo blast to right field.