ATLANTA -- Following Saturday night’s heartbreaking extra-innings loss to the Braves, the Reds easily could have mailed it in Sunday and looked ahead to going home and regrouping.\n\nIt would have been even easier to do so following Sunday afternoon’s lightning-quick meltdown in the ninth inning, which saw a two-run lead with two outs to go nightmarishly morph into a tie, with the winning run 90 feet away, in a matter of three hitters.\n\nBut that’s not in the DNA of these Reds, who won 6-4 in 10 innings against the Braves at SunTrust Park.\n\n• [Box score](https://www.mlb.com/gameday/567223/final/box)\n\n“They never give up,” acting manager Freddie Benavides said. “We’re always battling to the end.”\n\nOn Sunday, reliever
The 10th saw more resilience, this time after a double play appeared to short-circuit the inning. Pinch-hitter
The Reds are OK with the split with the National League East-leading Braves. Of course, it’s always nice to earn the split with a win, especially this one, even if it came in a manner more dramatic than they’d prefer.\n\n“We really, really needed it,” said Barnhart, who, in addition to his sixth homer, walked twice and scored twice. “Last night was rough. Any way we could have gotten today -- whether it was play 20 innings and win, score 15 runs and win 15-0, win a nail-biter -- it doesn’t matter how you get it. You just have to get it. Today was a huge win for us.”\n\nSunday’s win was even nicer seeing the positives and potential positives that came out of the series. It starts with the rotation. Over the four days in Atlanta, the Reds got the kind of starting pitching they hope to see for years to come and the kind they’ll need the rest of the season, and especially over the next two weeks, if they want to make up ground in the NL Wild Card race or even hope to stay in it.
“It’s one of the best, if not THE best rotation in the National League,” Barnhart said. “It’s a group of guys that’s going to make it extremely difficult on opposing offenses every single day and night out. I’ll take my chances with all our guys that we’ve got on the mound.”\n\nSunday’s starter,
Gray did it knowing the bullpen was short handed -- closer Raisel Iglesias was unavailable -- and after throwing 29 pitches in the first inning, most of them high stress following a leadoff double by Ronald Acuna Jr. Gray, who recorded his first career RBI on a fourth-inning squeeze bunt, got out of the first by inducing an infield pop and two of his seven strikeouts.\n\n“This may be the first time in my career that I’ve actually tried \\[to strike guys out\\],” said Gray, who is averaging 10.1 per nine innings. “Going in I was like, ‘I want to strike guys out.’ After the past couple of years, I sat down this offseason and looked at myself in the mirror and said, ‘What can I do? What can I do better?’”
The Sonny Express has become a key component of a rotation that got better in the past week gaining