The exclamation point was applied by Will Benson’s three-run home run.
But before they could catch their breath from running the bases and before the euporia settled, the A’s scored four in the next half inning. The dagger was a three-run home run by Seth Brown off Emilio Pagan, Brown’s second of the game.
In winning the first two games of the three-game series, the A’s hit seven home runs, three on Tuesday in a 5-4 win and four on Wednesday.
Of the 14 runs scored by the A’s in the two games, 13 came via homers.
With 29 games remaining, wins and losses the rest of the way for the 63-70 Reds are meaningless, especially after losing nine of their last 12.
While Oakland is 58-75, they are 21-15 since the All-Star break, one of the best in MLB, while the Reds are 17-21.
So it is time for the club to look forward to something else and that is likely to happen Friday night in Great American Ball Park during a doubleheader with division-leading Milwaukee.
While the Reds have not officially announced it, indications are that Rhett Lowder will start the second game.
Lowder, 22, was Cincinnati’s No. 1 draft choice in 2023 out of Wake Forest Universty and did not pitch in the Reds system last year because he had surpassed his innings limit.
So he began his career with the high-A Dayton Dragons this season ascended rapidly up the Reds’ minor league chain from Dayton to Class AA Chattanooga to Class AAA Louisville and now his indoctrination into The Show.
During his three stops Lowder combined for a 3.64 earned run average with 113 strikeouts and 24 walks over 108 2/3 innings. That covered 22 minor league appearances.
The Brewers will see a fastball that tops out at 95 mph with a slider and a changeup that ranks as big-league ready.
On Wednesday, though, the pitch-thin Reds used another Bullpen Day and started Fernando Cruz. He gave up a game-opening home run to Lawrence Butler and one other hit.
He pitched a career-high three innings and gave up one run, two hits no walks and struck out six. The A’s were swinging futilely at his deep-diving cutter.
After the third inning, he pleaded with manager David Bell in the dugout to permit him to go back out, but his three innings were a career most and his 47 pitches were his career most.
Meanwhile, the Reds, if they scanned the scouting report, knew they were in for a tough time against A’s start Osvaldo Bido.
He had won his previous three starts and given up one run and five hits over 18 innings with six walks and 17 strikeouts.
And he lived up to it. He retired the first 13 Reds before Spencer Steer singled with one out in the fifth.
Sam Moll replaced Cruz in the fourth and gave up a two-out, first-pitch 430-foot home run to Brown.
Casey Kelly, who pitched three perfect innings during his Reds debut over the weekend in Pittsburgh, followed Moll and gave up a 432-foot upper deck home run to Brent Rooker, his 31st.
And Kelly gave up two more run in the seventh as the A’s took a 5-0- lead.
Bido still had a one-hitter when he began the seventh. When Elly De La Cruz singled and Tyler Stephenson doubled him home, extending Stepheson’s hitting streak to 12, manager Mark Kotsay removed Bido in favor of T.J. McFarland.
The next two Reds made outs before Santiago Espinal extended his hitting streak to 10 with a run-scoring double to make it 5-2.
Michel Otanez replaced McFarland and pinch-hitter Ty France singled to put two on. Amed Rosario singled home a run and it was 5-3.
That brought up Benson, 4 for 27 with 12 strikeouts. On a 1-and-0 count he turned on Otanez’s 98 mph fastball and crash landed it 365 feet into the right-field bleachers.
It was Cincinnati’s fourth straight hit with two outs and Benson’s was a three-run home run to give the Reds a 6-5 lead.
Pagan arrived from the bullpen to protect that one-run lead and gave up single to JJ Bleday and a double to Shea Lengeliers.
Brown then blasted his 406-foot three-run homer on a 2-and-2 95 mph fastball. The A’s added another run in the eighth for a 9-6 lead.
Just as they did Tuesday in the ninth inning, the Reds staged a near-comeback against A’s All-Star closer Maon Miller.
On Tuesday, Miller gave up two runs and four hits in the ninth and the Reds had the potential tying run on third and the potential winning run on second. But Miller struck out Amed Rosario on a full count to end it.
Despite throwing 31 high-leveraged pitches Tuesday, Miller had manager Mark Kotsay’s blessing to try again Wednesday.
And the Reds put runners on second and first with one out. But one again he struck out Rosario. It was Benson’s turn with a chance for another three-run homer to tie it.
Miller struck him out to end it.
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