Reds Win As They Earn Split Against Braves.

The Cincinnati Reds badly needed this game to have little momentum heading into to the all star break and they were able to do it after scoring four runs in the top of the third to defeat the Braves 8-4 on Sunday afternoon in Atlanta to earn a split in the four game series.

Starter Tony Cingrani had control problems again especially in the bottom of the second inning where it look it was going to be a easy inning with two outs Reed Johnson pop to third baseman Todd Frazier and he couldn’t find the ball in the sun and it drop in front of him for a base hit. So that meant Cingrani had to throw more pitches eventually lead to a run and a Braves lead but that was the last lead they would have the whole entire game.

In the third inning Tony Cingrani bunted for a base hit, Shin-Soo Choo extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a single advancing Cingrani to third with no outs. Derrick Robinson fly out to center wasn’t deep enough to score the runner from third. Joey Votto on the first pitch of the at bat rocked a double to right to tie the game with one out. Brandon Phillips grounded out to short good enough to score Choo to give the Reds a 2-1 lead. They weren’t done Jay Bruce took a pitch from Braves starter Julio Tererhan to the seats out in right for his 19th homerun and gave the Reds a 4- 1 lead.

Cingrani continued to struggle due to high pitch count allowed another run before he was removed after the fourth inning. Logan Ondruesk got the win in relief of Cingrani pitching two solid innings.

In the fifth inning Choo homered to right his 13th of the season to give the Reds a 5-2 lead at that point. Choo have been on fire these last couple of weeks and I know he doesn’t want the break to come because he’s been tearing it up lately.

The Reds added three more runs to put the distance from the Braves thanks to a three run ninth inning. Braves got two more but not a huge deal as the bullpen did a good job of holding the lead up.

With the win the Reds ended the road trip at 3-4 and with the all star break upon them this was a big win for the team. So Joey Votto, Brandon Phillips,and Aroldis Chapman will head to Flushing, New York for the all star game while the others enjoy a much needed four days off. The team will resume play Friday night as they will host the Pittsburgh Pirates for a huge series right away for the 2nd half push.