Dateline: Cincinnati
Although the Athletics left handed starter Jacob Lopez did a great impression of ancient A's pitcher from 100 years and three cities ago, Lefty Grove, the Reds got enough offense to win 3-2.
Noelvi Marte singled stole, stole second and drove in the winning run with a sacrifice fly.
"When you pitch like we did, those are meaningful runs," Terry Francona said. "Their guy came out and struck out eight out of nine guys. He changed speeds. We were in kind of a rocking chair but we did enough."
Lawrence Butler homered deep into the right field seats off Rhett Lowder to lead off the game. It was Butler's seventh home run of the season and it was the eighth time in his career that Butler led off a game with a home run.
"When he gave up a home run to the first hitter and the second guy hit the ball pretty good but he gathered himself," Francona said.
Butler has seven home runs in 32 at bats against the Reds, lifetime. He hit seven each against the Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers but those teams play the A's often in the American League West.
Jacob Lopez struck out the side in the Reds' first inning and struck out three in the second inning but in between the strikeouts, Marte singled into the hole at short and stole second. Jose Trevino found the same hole for a run scoring single.
Lopez finished with nine strikeouts, one short of his career high.
Matt McLain hit his ninth home run of the season with two outs in the fifth to put the Reds ahead, 2-1. It was his first home run since June 7, when he hit two against the St. Louis Cardinals in St. Louis.
"He's such a good defender, if he can chip in a little bit. He's strong enough to go the other way," Francona said.
The A's got the run back in the top of the sixth. Tyler Soderstrom, who walked in both of his first at bats, singled. He was running on a 3-2 pitch to Jonah Heim as he doubled down the right field line to tie the score.
The Reds took the lead back against Hayden Juenger. Sal Stewart hit a ball back to the mound. Juenger knocked it down but Stewart beat a wide throw to first. Dane Myers singled to right to send Stewart to third. Eugenio Suarez struck out for the third time but Marte got Stewart home with a fly to right. Left hander Jose Suarez relieved Juenger. He balked to send Myers to second.
Brock Burke relieved Lowder, who pitched six innings, allowing two runs on four hits and two walks. He struck out three. Burke threw 18 pitches.Tejay Antone got both batters he faced on six pitches. Emilio Pagan earned his 13th save on 13 pitches. In his last eight games he has two wins and six saves.
"I had to flip my mindset a little bit. I've had some good starts and some really bad ones," Lowder said. "When you're not really helping the team win, you want to try to be perfect. You're not going to dig yourself out of the hole and trying to be perfect puts too much pressure on yourself. Now I'm going out there and trying to pitch quality innings."
"If we can keep our bullpen from being over used, we have a chance to be good. We've had to struggle with that. That's not their fault. They've been used a lot but Burke had two days off. That doesn't happen a lot," Francona said.
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