Nick Senzel lifted a sacrifice fly in the 10th inning off Ryan Helsley to defeated the rival St. Louis Cardinals 6-5 to break a four-game losing streak.
Spencer Steer was the ghost runner. Tyler Stephenson reached base for the fourth time in the game with a walk. Ball four was in the dirt, catcher Tres Barrera, tried to block it but it rolled away far enough for Steer to take third. Senzel lifted a slider to right plenty deep enough for Steer to score the winning run.
"CC (Collin Cowgill, the first base coach) put that in my head to try to look for a dirt ball and get a good jump," Steer said. "He is hard to hit so its big to get that extra base."
Senzel, who also had two hits in the game, just needed to make contact against a pitcher that is difficult to make contact against.
"We grinded that one out. It was a great read by Spence on ball four," Senzel said. "The goal was to just get it in the air, a ground ball was no good there. He (Helsley) is so hard to hit there, he's one of the best in the game. He just left a pitch a little bit higher up than his previous pitch."
The Reds continued their habit of scoring in the first inning. Jonathan India blasted the first pitch he saw from Jordan Montgomery off the left field wall for a double. Matt McLain followed with a double on the second pitch he saw to score India. Tyler Stephenson singled to put the Reds ahead 2-0.
Brandon Williamson, coming off a good start in his first Major League game, gave the lead back. He struck out All-Star, Nolan Arenado but Juan Yepez singled. Nolan Gorman, who was just named NL player of the week, walked. Paul DeJong hit the first pitch deep into the left field stands to put the Cardinals up 3-2.
The Cardinals have hit 36 home runs in May with nine games left in the month.
Steer put the Reds back on top in the third. McLain rifled his second hit of the game to right. Steer reached the first row of the left field stands for his sixth home run.
"I hit a change up. I thought I got under it a little bit. I didn't think it was going to go out, honestly. Thankfully, it did," Steer said.
The bullpen allowed one run over 5 2/3 innings with Alexis Diaz getting five key outs to give the Reds two chances of winning the game.
"So many guys came through to win the game," David Bell said. "The dirt ball read by Spencer get us to third made it tough on the defense. Then Nick had a good at bat there but it all started with the bullpen, starting with Farmer. Of course Diaz is going to have a lot of big saves in his career, those are great but I don't think it gets any tougher to what he did tonight. To come in a tie game where you have to get your adrenaline going. He got out of that inning and came back against the top of their lineup. That says a lot about Alexis."
The Cardinals used back-to-back doubles by Gorman, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games, and DeJong to tie the score against Alex Young. Closer Alexis Diaz came in to try to hold the lead.
Diaz got out of the eighth with a tie but alternated walks and strikeouts to load the bases in the ninth with two outs. Diaz struck out Gorman the reigning NL player of the week.
"I don't think there is a different mentality whether there are guys on base or not. We all put our work into to trying to get this victory. It felt like we had a chance to win the game the whole game," Diaz said."I tried to focus on using my slider. I didn't really have my fastball. I wanted to get a ground ball there but got a swing and miss instead."
Ian Gibaut, who was the losing pitcher, on Saturday, started the 10th with Gorman on second as the ghost runner. Gibaut struck out two to give the Reds a chance to walk off with Steer appearing as the ghost runner. This time Gibaut came out on top.
"I try to take it like any other game," Gibaut said. "It seams pretty natural, coming in with a guy on second. It happens in the sixth inning or the eighth. It is the same goal. Don't let that guy score."
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