Using home runs from Brandon Belt and Hunter Pence and three RBIs from Nori Aoki, the Giants outlasted the Reds for a wild 9-8 win on Sunday at Great American Ball Park to claim three of four games in the series. San Francisco scored 30 runs over the three straight wins.
“It was a hard-fought game,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “They would punch back and we would punch back. The key was, we kept adding on.”
The Giants took early leads of 4-0 through two innings and 6-1 after the third. In the second against Reds starter Anthony DeSclafani, San Francisco sent nine to the plate with five hits and four runs — including Aoki’s two-run single. Pence hit a two-run homer in the top of the third inning, his first of the season following Saturday’s return from the disabled list. DeSclafani finished with a season-high six earned runs and six hits allowed over a season-low three innings.
Cincinnati provided its own nine-batter rally in the bottom of the third against Chris Heston, scoring four runs on four hits. Heston was pulled six hitters into the inning without retiring a batter in his shortest outing of 2015.
“I don’t think we ever thought we were out of it,” said Reds right fielder Jay Bruce, who hit homers in each of the last two games. “We’re trying to pick the pitchers up. There are going to be days where they have to pick us up. It’s one of those things, it’s back and forth. What are you going to do, give up?”
The Giants and Reds traded runs in the fifth inning, with Brandon Phillips keeping his team in the game with a one-out solo homer to left field. But the Giants added another run against Tony Cingrani in the seventh, and Belt’s third homer in three games in the eighth against Jumbo Diaz helped keep the Reds at bay.
“This is more like what we’re capable of doing,” Belt said. “Hopefully this gave us a little confidence.”
In the Reds’ eighth, Joey Votto blooped a double past a sliding Aoki in left field. Crawford ran from the infield to get the ball, but his throw hit Brayan Pena on the back as he slid into third, and he scored to make it a one-run game. Votto, said Reds manager Bryan Price, wasn’t past second base when the throw was made, or he might have been awarded home, too.
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