The Reds got a glimpse of what some robust (Jorge) Soler power looks like on Wednesday evening. That and some other lesser drives to the outer limits of Great American Ball Park were not quite enough to undo a very dependable start from Mat Latos.
A four-run fourth inning supported Latos nicely before the Reds had to hang on for a 7-5 victory over the Cubs. Cincinnati has won three of its last four games and stopped Chicago’s four-game win streak.
“It was definitely something that we needed,” Reds manager Bryan Price said of Latos’ performance.
Latos worked into the eighth inning and survived giving up back-to-back home runs to Luis Valbuena and Soler to begin the second inning. Valbuena hit a 1-0 pitch to right field and Soler — a top prospect who received a much-ballyhooed callup from Triple-A earlier in the day — tattooed a 2-1 fastball an estimated 423 feet and over the center-field fence.
It made Soler the first Cubs player to homer in his first Major League plate appearance since Starlin Castro did it against the Reds, also in Cincinnati, on May 7, 2010.
“I felt like earlier in the game, I really didn’t have a good release point,” Latos said. “Both pitches were two-seamers. I wound up pulling it back over the middle of the plate instead of going down and away with it.”
In seven-plus innings, Latos allowed four earned runs and seven hits with one walk and a season-high 10 strikeouts. He is 3-0 with a 2.95 ERA over his last six starts.
A single by Welington Castillo followed the two homers in the second inning, but Latos retired nine of the next 10 batters without another hit until Chris Valaika’s leadoff infield single in the fifth.
“He had a few guys that had some relatively comfortable at-bats against him, and then he really turned a corner and made some outstanding pitches,” Price said of Latos.
The Reds made it a 2-2 game in the bottom of the second before a four-run fourth provided the needed separation. Nine Reds batted in the fourth, but it started with a nice spark from Kristopher Negron, who legged out a double on a hit into short left-center field. That paid off when he scored the go-ahead run easily on Skip Schumaker’s single through the left side.
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