Reds Win Second Straight with a Strong Offensive Showing

The Reds took the field against the San Francisco Giants Tuesday night.

The game featured a marquee pitching match-up between the Giants Matt Cain, and former division rival Mat Latos.

Latos was having a dreadful start to the season while Cain, on the other hand, had been earning every bit of his recently signed contract extension.

Cain pitched well again, but Latos was just flat out better.

Much had been made of Latos' slow start this season, but he looked as good as ever last night. His fastball showed good life and was consistently around 91-94 mph even hitting 95 on occasion.

Though the strikeout totals were low, he located his fastball well, and got a lot of swing and misses on his curveball. 14 of the 21 outs Latos recorded were either ground-outs, pop-outs or strikeouts.

He kept hitters off-balance all night and the only time he got in real trouble was the sixth inning. In the sixth, Latos got the first two outs, allowed a single to Melky Cabrera, then proceeded to walk Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey before getting Nate Schierholtz to ground out to second with the bases already loaded.

Latos was relieved by Jose Arredondo who went one inning allowing no hits and no walks while striking out two on 14 pitches.

Sam LeCure followed in the ninth and struggled allowing two runs on a Buster Posey home run. LeCure allowed two hits, one walk and two earned runs in one inning pitch.

In seven innings, Latos allowed just four hits and two walks while striking out three en route to his first victory of the young season.

If Latos' slow start was worrying fans, the offense's slow start was even more troubling.

Not Tuesday though.

The Reds got Mat Latos an early lead in the first when Drew Stubbs smacked a one-out double. Joey Votto followed with a strikeout, but Brandon Phillips drilled a two-out 418-foot home run to jump ahead 2-0.

The offense was kept in check until the seventh. They managed just three baserunners between the second and sixth inning.

In the seventh inning the Reds played add-on.

Ryan Ludwick led off the seventh with a bomb of a home run to extend the Reds lead to three. After getting one out, Cain was removed in favor of Dan Otero.

Otero proceeded to allow back-to-back singles to Willie Harris and Zack Cozart before getting Drew Stubbs to ground into a fielders choice for the second out of the inning.

Otero then hit Joey Votto, walked Brandon Phillips (forcing in a run) and allowed back-to-back doubles to Jay Bruce and Scott Rolen.

By the time the inning ended, the Reds added six runs and were up 8-0.

The Reds added one final run in the eighth when Drew Stubbs singled in Ryan Hannigan from second.

All-in-all, the Reds beat the Giants 9-2.

Hopefully this is a sign of things to come for the Reds whose bats have finally started to come to life a little bit in recent games.