After being swept by the worst team in the AL West and losing seven of their last nine games, the Cincinnati Reds needed a win, bad. They slid 1.5 games behind the St. Louis Cardinals and despite quality pitching against Seattle, their top notch offense had gone stale.
Joey Votto doubled in Brandon Phillips during the first inning of Monday's game against the Oakland A's, but after that the Reds allowed another mediocre pitcher to appear as a Cy Young candidate. After the first inning, Gio Gonzales settled in for Oakland and pitched seven innings allowing just one run on four hits while striking out nine. With 96 pitches, Mike "Godzilla" Leake kept his team in the game hurling six innings (1ER, 5H) and rebounded nicely after his first major league loss on June 16 against the Dodgers.
During the top of the ninth inning with the game tied at one, Jay Bruce came off the bench to drive in a run with two outs. Leading off the bottom of the ninth, Kevin Kouzmanoff drilled the first pitch he saw from Reds' closer Francisco Cordero into the right-field seats of Oakland Coliseum tying the game at two. It was Cordero's fifth blown save this season in 22 chances. Cordero finished the inning without any further damage ant sent the game into extras.
Something then woke up the Reds' offense. Ramon Hernandez led off the tenth inning with a homerun off the left-field foul pole. Brandon Phillips followed with a single and Paul Janish bunted him to second. Joey Votto and Scott Rolen then hit their fifteenth homeruns of the season, back-to-back.
"It seems like when your bats are sick, everybody's bats are sick," Dusty Baker said. "When your bats get well, it seems like everybody's bats get well at the same time."
Just to make the game interesting, Dusty Baker sent Francisco Cordero back to the mound in the bottom of the tenth with a comfortable 6-2 lead. The Shaky Cordero walked the first two batters he faced and was quickly yanked. Danny Herrera replaced Cordero and retired one, but allowed a run to score before rookie Jordan Smith took over. With one out, Smith got Kevin Kouzmanoff to groundout to Paul Janish as Conor Jackson scored from third. Smith then struck out Jack Cust to end the game as the Reds defeated the A's 6-4.
Jordan Smith received his first major league save and for the second time this season, Francisco Cordero blew a save while receiving the win.
Bronson Arroyo (6-3, 4.53) will face Dallas Braden (4-6, 3.78) and the Athletics at 10:05pm on Tuesday.
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