Cincinnati Reds Press Clippings May 21, 2017 THIS DAY IN REDS HISTORY 2012-Mike Leake, Zack Cozart and Drew Stubbs produce back-to-back-to-back home runs in the fourth inning, all off the Braves Mike Minor, setting a club record MLB.COM Arroyo eyes win vs. Rockies in series finale By John Fay / Special to MLB.com | 6:42 AM ET + 0 COMMENTS Rookie left-hander Kyle Freeland and veteran right-hander Bronson Arroyo meet up in the finale of the three-game series between the Reds and Rockies in a 1:10 (ET) p.m. game at Great American Ball Park. Freeland has gone at least six innings in his last five starts and has six quality starts in eight outings. But he's battled a bit of wildness lately, walking four in each of his last two starts. Overall, he's walked 22 and struck out 29 in 46 innings. "He's got great action in the hitting area," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "Everything is going down. The changeup is going down. The slider doesn't have great depth, but it's going down. The life on his ball in the strike zone makes it very difficult for a hitter to get out, so therefore, he gets a lot of ground balls." Arroyo is coming off a rough outing in which he allowed five runs on eight hits over five innings in a 9-5 loss to the Cubs in Chicago. The Reds had won his previous five starts before that outing. Arroyo is 5-4 with a 5.00 ERA in 15 games (13 starts) against the Rockies. Coors Field has been rough on him. He's 2-3 with a 7.27 ERA at Coors, and he's 3-1 with 3.19 ERA against the Rockies when he's pitching at his home park. Three Things to Know • The Reds and Rockies meet again July 3-7 for a four-game series in Denver. • Billy Hamilton entered Saturday hitting .367/.383/.506 against the Rockies with nine steals in nine tries. Part of it is going against Rockies leadoff man Charlie Blackmon. "He's a great leadoff hitter," Hamilton said. "I always want to try to out-do him." • Carlos Gonzalez is 9-for-17 with two doubles against Arroyo. Oddly, Gonzalez has no RBIs off Arroyo. John Fay is a contributor to MLB.com based in Cincinnati. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Three homers aid Reds in comeback win By Jeremy Vernon and John Fay / MLB.com | May 20th, 2017 + 33 COMMENTS CINCINNATI -- In a seesaw battle Saturday, the Reds held off the first-place Rockies for a 12-8 win at Great American Ball Park. Cincinnati jumped to an early lead before the Rockies scored six times in the fifth and took an 8-3 lead. Not to be deterred, the Reds responded by scoring nine unanswered runs over the next three innings to snap their season-high seven-game losing streak. Trailing by a run entering the fifth, the Rockies quickly tied things up after an RBI groundout by DJ LeMahieu, and took the lead on an Ian Desmond two-out single four batters later, chasing Reds starter Tim Adleman from the game after just 4 2/3 innings. Reds starters have pitched 22 2/3 innings over their last six games. Colorado tacked on four more runs in the frame, taking a commanding 8-3 lead into the bottom of the fifth. But unlike the night before, Cincinnati was able to respond after a big inning by the Rockies. They got one run back on a solo homer from Eugenio Suarez in the bottom of the fifth. That was it for Colorado rookie right-hander Antonio Senzatela, who went five innings and allowed four runs on five hits. "He didn't quite locate his pitches like we've seen him," Rockies manager Bud Black said. "Velocity was fine, but just a little out of whack on the command. But hung in their with their guy. Outlasted their guy. We got the six-spot for him. After he gave up the home run, he turned it up a notch and got the last two outs. "He was not at the top of his game, but nevertheless, a learning experience for him." The Reds put together a six-run inning of their own in the sixth against Colorado relievers Chad Qualls and Mike Dunn. Upon scratching across three runs to cut the deficit to 8-7, Scott Schebler provided the exclamation point with a three-run homer to right field for a 10-8 lead. "It's a big moment," Reds manager Bryan Price said. "There are so many moments that are in that game that the optimal thing doesn't happen. When it does, it's a sensational feeling. Talk about re-invigorating a ballclub. That inning and that three-run homer in and of itself brought our group back to life, especially after being down by so much." The Reds did it against a bullpen that had converted 20 of 22 saves and had a 2.04 road ERA. "Today was a rare occurrence," Black said. "This hasn't happened. It's one of these days where they strung together hits. They found some holes. "It's baseball. A baseball game was played. They hit some homers in the sixth inning themselves and crawled back into the game with their bats." The Reds tacked on two more runs in the seventh, and left the ball in the hands of reliever Asher Wojciechowski to close out the game and spell a tired bullpen. Less than 24 hours after getting called up from Triple-A Louisville for his team debut, the right- hander tossed 3 2/3 innings of one-hit ball to help stave off a Colorado comeback and earn his first Major League win. MOMENTS THAT MATTERED Welcome back: Devin Mesoraco led off the bottom of the sixth inning by crushing a 1-1 pitch into the stands in left field to make it an 8-5 game, jump-starting the Reds' rally. The solo shot gave Mesoraco his second RBI of the day in his first time back in the lineup after missing four games with a sore left hamstring. "In that situation, I'm just trying to get on base," Mesoraco said. "We're down a couple of runs. Your first goal is to get on base. It was a sinker kind of over the plate. I put a good swing on it. It worked out." Helping his own cause: Two batters after Alexi Amarista's double, Colorado starter Antonio Senzatela stepped to the plate and slapped the first pitch he saw from Cincinnati reliever Drew Storen up the middle for a two-run single. The hit extended Colorado's lead to 7-3. QUOTABLE "It was kind of a crazy back-and-forth game. It's just fun to be a part of." -- Schebler, on the 12-8 victory. UPON FURTHER REVIEW In the top of the fifth inning, the Rockies' Nolan Arenado attempted to go from first to third on a one-out single to center by Mark Reynolds. Arenado slid in before Billy Hamilton's throw reached Suarez at third and the third-base umpire called him safe, but it looked like Arenado may have slid over the bag and been tagged out on the foot by Suarez. After a replay review, the call was overturned and Arenado was ruled out. WHAT'S NEXT Rockies: Left-hander Kyle Freeland (4-2, 3.13 ERA) gets the ball for the final game of the three-game series at 11:10 a.m. MT Sunday. Freeland is suited for Great American Ball Park: His ground-ball rate in 66.2 percent, third in MLB. Reds: Righty Bronson Arroyo (3-3, 6.31 ERA) will take the mound for Cincinnati in the final game of the series at 1:10 p.m. ET. In his last start, Arroyo gave up five runs across five innings as the Reds fell to the Cubs, 9-5. Watch every out-of-market regular-season game live on MLB.TV. Jeremy Vernon is a reporter for MLB.com based in Cincinnati. John Fay is a contributor to MLB.com based in Cincinnati and covered the Rockies on Saturday. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. Wojciechowski comes up big for Reds Pitcher learned of callup late Friday night and drove to Cincinnati on Saturday morning By Mark Sheldon / MLB.com | @m_sheldon | May 20th, 2017 + 1 COMMENT CINCINNATI -- The Reds' biggest comeback of the season required a big offensive boost, but the path to a 12-8 victory over the Rockies on Saturday that snapped a season-high seven game losing streak was paved by a journeyman pitcher who wasn't even in the organization one month ago. Asher Wojciechowski, who was signed as a free agent for Minor League depth on April 21 and assigned to Triple-A Louisville's rotation, was called up to fortify a tired bullpen. And did he ever with 3 2/3 scoreless innings while retiring his first 11 batters in a row for his first big league win. "I was without a job, and then for a day like this to happen is pretty remarkable," Wojciechowski said. "And I'm on cloud nine right now, it feels so good." A six-run Rockies fifth inning gave them an 8-3 lead and had manager Bryan Price summoning Wojciechowski for mop-up work.