ST. LOUIS (AP) — TJ Friedl hit a tiebreaking triple in the seventh inning and Tommy Pham added a solo homer as the Cincinnati Reds beat the St. Louis Cardinals 7-6 Sunday to snap a four-game losing streak.
Nolan Arenado and Juan Yepez homered for the Cardinals, who have lost four of six.
Friedl broke a 4-4 tie with a long drive to right field and Albert Almora Jr. followed with a sacrifice fly. Pham homered against his former team in the eighth.
“I was just looking for something to pull, to get a good pitch to hit,” Friedl said. “Got ahead 3-1 and I got that fastball middle-in and put a pretty good swing on it.”
The Reds have fashioned an 18-16 record after a dismal 3-23 start to the season. They failed to win any of their first eight series.
“To me it says what I already know about our players,” Cincinnati manager David Bell said. ”They don’t really get fazed by too much. They just keep playing and continue to compete. It sure is nice when we’re rewarded with success. Today, a big win.”
Friedl has played in four games since being recalled from Triple-A Louisville on June 6 when Mike Moustakas went on the injured list. This is Friedl’s fourth stint with the big league team already this season.
“He went down to Triple-A and had a real nice weekend,” Bell said. “That seemed to really get him going. Fortunately we’ve been able to get him some playing time. We know what we can do.”
The Reds trailed 3-0 after Arenado hit his 11th homer of the season, a two-run drive in the third.
Jeff Hoffman (1-0) picked up the win with 1 1/3 innings of scoreless relief. Alexis Diaz posted his second save.
Dakota Hudson (4-3) allowed six runs on nine hits over seven innings. He entered the game with a 6-0 lifetime record against Cincinnati.
Pham pushed the lead to 7-4 with a homer off Johan Oviedo.
“He made a good pitch on me,” Pham said, ”That’s not an easy pitch to have that kind of result on.”
Albert Pujols hit an RBI double in the St. Louis that made it 4-all.
Yepez hit a two-run, two-out homer in the ninth. Diaz then struck out Pujols to end the game.
Yepez matched a career high with three hits. He credits help from his father Omar in Venezuela with the turnaround.
“I made a couple calls to my dad, he saw a few things in what I was doing,” Yepez said.
MESSAGE RECEIVED
St. Louis outfielder Harrison Bader was back in the starting lineup after being benched by manager Oliver Marmol in the middle of Saturday’s game for failing to run out a flyball.
“Sometimes you’ve just got to get slapped on the wrist and understand that there’s a certain standard for this clubhouse,” Bader said. “The way I handled that flyball was not to the full effort of my capabilities.”
Marmol spoke with Bader after Saturday’s game and said that Bader understood his mistake.
THE MACHINE KEEPS ROLLING
Pujols appeared in his 1,738th game for the Cardinals tying him with Curt Flood for seventh all-time in franchise history.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Reds: INF Jonathan India continues a rehab stint in Triple-A Louisville that began on Tuesday, He has been on the injury list twice since May 1 with a right hamstring strain.
Cardinals: INF Paul Goldschmidt was given the day off. Goldschmidt had a 46-game on-base streak snapped on Saturday.
UP NEXT
Reds: LHP Mike Minor (0-2, 8.64) will start in Phoenix on Monday in the first of a three-game series against the Diamondbacks .Minor is making his third start after beginning the season on the injured list with a left shoulder strain.
Cardinals: LHP Zack Thompson (0-0, 2.25) will make the first start of her career on Monday. He will face Pittsburgh RHP Mitch Keller (2-5, 5.26) in the first of a four-game series against the Pirates in St. Louis.
