Cincinnati Reds Win Series at LA Behnd Cueto, Assure a Successful Road Trip

Even though there is still an afternoon game at Dodger Stadium today, the Reds have assured themselves of a successful road trip.

Johnny Cueto (4-2) looked every bit a stud ace as he handcuffed the Bums over seven innings last night. He surrendered only five hits, no earned runs, one walk and had five strikeouts in the Reds' 3-2 win.

It was the seventh quality start in eight attempts for the hard-throwing right-hander, as he helped pull the Reds to 2.5 games back of the pace set by the Milwaukee Brewers and St. Louis Cardinals.

After splitting a four-game set with the defending world champion San Francisco Giants, Cincinnati has won the first two against Los Angeles, double-dipping as the Brewers have dropped two straight to the forlorn Chicago Cubs.

Dodger ace Clayton Kershaw left the game after seven strong innings in a 1-1 tie. Reliever Blake Hawksworth (1-2) was saddled with the loss.

Reds closer Coco Cordero earned his 14th save in 16 tries as he survived a rocky ninth inning where he faced the winning run in Casey Blake, whom he whiffed, and Rod Barajas popped out to Paul Janish.

The Reds, winners of three of their last four games, will go for a sweep on Wednesday at 3:10 ET when they send southpaw Travis Wood (4-4) to the hill against Chad Billingsley (5-5).

After the game the Reds will fly home and host a six-game American League invasion, starting with the Toronto Blue Jays for the weekend and the New York Yankees Monday through Wednesday.

Reds Notes

Jonny Gomes, though having a hot bat lately, hasn’t appeared in the last two games. That makes me suspiciously thinking that they have made the decision to make Chris Heisey the left fielder and perhaps shop Gomes.

Jay Bruce has turned cold just as quickly as he was on fire. In his last eight games he is batting .154/.333/.154 with no home runs and has only knocked in two runs. For the entire month of June he is batting .239 with a homer and four knocked in.

The Reds have four pitchers with ERA below 2.00. Cueto clocks in at 1.68 while relievers Bill Bray (1.59), Cordero (1.67) and Logan Ondrusek (1.82) round out the list.

Cordero, who will be a free agent after the season ends, is coming off one of his worst seasons. He is looking good in his year of accountability with a record of 3-1 and a WHIP of 0.866.

Drew Stubbs is having a nice month of June. He is batting .315/.413/.481 with a pair of round-trippers and seven runs knocked in.