Reds earn win over Brewers

CINCINNATI — Colin Moran homered in his third straight at-bat, Brandon Drury and Kyle Farmer each hit a threerun homer, and the Cincinnati Reds won two straight games for the first time this season, rallying past the Milwaukee Brewers 10-5 on Monday night.

“It was great to have a couple of wins in a row,” Reds manager David Bell said. “The way it happened was beautiful.”

The Reds, baseball’s worst team at 6-23, bounced back after being swept in three games at Milwaukee last week by a combined score of 3412.

“This has been a struggle and no one wants to go through it but it has brought us all together,” Drury said. “There are a lot of new faces. We’ve been forced to stay together.”

Moran connected in the second inning off Brandon Woodruff (3-2) to make it 1-0. His first longball of the season was a grand slam in the sixth inning of Sunday’s 7-3 win over the Pirates, and he hit a two-run blast in his next at-bat. Moran has started the last seven games with Joey Votto on the COVID-19-related injured list.

Luis Castillo, who missed spring training and the first 28 games with a right shoulder strain, made his season debut for Cincinnati. He allowed one hit through the first three innings before Rowdy Tellez doubled in two runs in the fourth. Omar Narvaez then homered leading off the fifth to make it 3-1.

Castillo was pulled later in the fifth and gave up three runs on three hits with three walks and five strikeouts. The Reds still don’t have a quality start this season.

“I’m feeling really healthy and I’m looking forward to more starts here,” Castillo said. “I would have liked to get through the fifth inning. That’s always the manager’s decision. Being my first outing of the season it was good. I will have more games to pitch deeper.”

Luis Cessa (1-0) escaped the fifth before allowing two runs in the sixth. Alexis Diaz, Jeff Hoffman and Joel Kuhnel combined to throw 3 1/3 scoreless innings of relief.