CINCINNATI (AP) – Jesse Winker homered and set career highs with four hits and five RBIs, Yasiel Puig added a two-run shot, and the Cincinnati Reds beat the Texas Rangers 11-3 Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep.
The Reds broke open a one-run game with a four-run fourth. Winker followed pitcher Sonny Gray‘s leadoff triple with a homer, his 11th of the season and first in 21 games. Puig drove in Joey Votto with a shot off the batter’s eye for his 13th homer on the first pitch he saw from reliever Pete Fairbanks.
Puig had three hits for the second time in three games.
Gray worked around Shin-Soo Choo’s solo home run and Hunter Pence’s two-run shot to finish five innings in a game that was delayed at the start by 1 hour, 34 minutes. Gray (3-5) gave up five hits and three runs with one walk and eight strikeouts. He improved to 3-1 with a 2.93 ERA over his last four starts.
Ariel Jurado, who won each of his previous three starts, lasted three batters into the fourth inning. Jurado (4-3) allowed nine hits, the most of any of his six starts this season, and seven runs with one walk and no strikeouts. He also hit a batter.
Neither Puig in right field or Winker in center moved more than a step on Choo’s first-inning rocket into the right-center field seats, Choo’s 12th of the season.
Winker followed Jose Peraza‘s sacrifice fly with a two-run double for a 3-1 Reds lead in the second. It was Winker’s first RBIs since May 28. Pence tied the game with his drive into the visitors’ bullpen in left-center field in the third on a 3-0 fastball, Pence’s 17th career homer against Cincinnati.
Winker added an RBI single in Cincinnati’s three-run fifth.
TRAINER’S ROOM
Rangers: OF Nomar Mazara did not start and was set to have an MRI on Monday after leaving Saturday’s game with a tight right hamstring. … RF Hunter Pence left the game with tightness in his right groin after chasing Peraza’s ground-rule double down the right field line in the fifth.
Reds: OF Nick Senzel was not in Sunday’s starting lineup, but he was available, manager David Bell said. Senzel needed three stitches to close a cut above his left eye, the result of a foul tip that bounced off his left foot and hit the bill of his batting helmet and his eye Saturday. … IF Scooter Gennett will begin a rehab stint Monday with four or five days at Class A Daytona. He has been out all season with a right groin strain.
UP NEXT
Rangers: RHP Lance Lynn (7-4, 4.40) is 2-0 with a 0.75 ERA in two career starts against Cleveland going into Monday’s opener of a four-game series and seven-game Texas home stand.
Reds: RHP Luis Castillo (6-1, 2.20) is scheduled to make his first career appearance against Houston in Monday’s opener of a three-game series in Cincinnati.
