ST. LOUIS -- Fight, claw, scratch -- whatever it takes at this point is what the Reds must do for wins that keep their playoff hopes alive.
In a game where they had multiple leads that didn't hold up, the Reds emerged with an 11-6 victory over the Cardinals on Monday at Busch Stadium. Cincinnati (75-75) inched to within two games of the idle Mets for the final National League Wild Card berth with 12 games remaining in the regular season.
“We need to win desperately. We found a way tonight, which was really good,\" manager Terry Francona said.\n\nThe Reds, which were coming off being swept in three games by the A's out west, had leads of 1-0 through two innings, 3-1 through the third and 6-4 after the seventh. All of them went away during the night, but the offense kept picking up the pitching staff.\n\n“We’re resilient. I think we’ve shown that,\" said rookie first baseman
It was a 6-6 game in the top of the eighth when Stewart hit a one-out single before
That was the second hit of the night for Stephenson, who also opened the top of the seventh inning with a single to left-center field against Cardinals reliever Chris Roycroft with the Reds trailing, 4-3. De La Cruz then drew a walk to put the go-ahead run on base. After the runners were moved 90 feet by Hayes' groundout to the shortstop, both Stephenson and De La Cruz scored when
* With playoff chances sliding, De La Cruz moved to 7th in Reds' order
The comeback was a rebound from the bottom of the sixth inning, when Reds starter Zack Littell gave up three runs and the lead to St. Louis -- all with two outs. Alec Burleson hit a two-run double to the gap in left-center field, and Willson Contreras followed with the go-ahead RBI single to end Littell's night.
“It’s good to see us respond to some situations,\" Stephenson said. \"Littell threw well and then they scratched a few and we responded back. It was a big one.”\n\nSt. Louis evened the game with two runs in the bottom of the seventh after Graham Ashcraft gave up hits to the inning's first two batters. The Cardinals scored with two outs against Tony Santillan on RBI singles by Brendan Donovan and Iván Herrera.\n\nIn an important high-leverage inning,