The Rockies’ bullpen returned to form Sunday at Great American Ball Park, holding off the Reds and helping secure a 6-4 win for Colorado, which took two of three games away from home for its fourth straight road series win.
“This was a good one,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “The Reds have been playing good baseball from Opening Day until now. They had a little bit of a rough patch. It was a good series. They kept putting pressure on us. We kept putting pressure on them. It was a good win.”
Cincinnati held a 1-0 advantage after one inning, but a sacrifice fly from Charlie Blackmon and an RBI single from DJ LeMahieu — who went 4-for-5 on the day — plated a pair of runs in the Rockies’ third for the lead.
Carlos Gonzalez opened the fourth with a home run off of starter Bronson Arroyo for a 3-1 lead. It was Gonzalez’s 200th home run as a Rockie and his first in 77 at-bats. Gonzalez went 1-for-2 against Arroyo on the day, improving his career average against the righty to .526 (10-for-19).
Arroyo gave up two more solo home runs in the fifth to pitcher Kyle Freeland and LeMahieu, and another to Pat Valaika to lead off the sixth. The four home runs given up by Arroyo were his most allowed in a game since surrendering five against the Pirates on Sept. 28, 2013.
“The starting pitching the last one and a half times through hasn’t been pitching deep in the games,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “That’s why he was back out there in the sixth, was hoping to pick up another three outs for us and limit what we had to do with Robert Stephenson and Blake Wood today. And it just wasn’t happening.”
Valaika’s home run gave the Rockies a 6-1 lead, but the Reds trimmed the deficit to 6-4 in the bottom of the inning thanks to a pair of homers from Joey Votto and Scott Schebler off Freeland, who picked up the win after allowing five hits and three earned runs over 5 2/3 innings.
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