The Phillies didn't do a lot of hitting - at least not early - on Tuesday night but what they did was certainly timely as they rallied to defeat the Cincinnati Reds, 6-1, on another cold night at Citizens Bank Park.
All of the Phillies' runs came on two-out hits, helping Aaron Nola earn his first win of the season. The big blow was an eighth-inning grand slam by rookie Scott Kingery, who has now homered two nights in a row.
The key hit in the game came from a player who hasn't hit much at all in the early days of this new season.
J.P. Crawford, who hadn't had a hit since the second game of the season back on March 30, broke a 1-1 tie with a two-out single in the bottom of the seventh.
The win was the Phillies' fourth in five games on the homestand and left them at 5-5 after 10 games.
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Nola was outstanding in delivering eight innings of three-hit, six-strikeout ball. He threw a season-high 103 pitches.
Nola did issue three walks and one of them came back to bite him. With two outs in the fifth inning and the game scoreless, he walked speedster Billy Hamilton, the No. 9 hitter, on four pitches. Hamilton swiped second and scored on a hit by Jesse Winker.
Cincinnati starter Homer Bailey did not give up a hit through 5 1/3 innings. Cesar Hernandez got the Phils' first hit, a one-out single in the sixth. He stole second with two outs and scored the tying run on a ringing double to right-center by Odubel Herrera.
The Reds went to reliever Jared Hughes in the seventh. He surrendered a leadoff double down the left-field line to Nick Williams. Three batters later, Crawford came back from an 0-2 hole and stroked a 2-2 sinker into right field to put the Phils ahead. As Crawford came out of the batter's box and watched the ball get through the infield, he clapped his hands. He had been 1 for 25 on the season before the hit.
The Phils blew it open against right-hander Tanner Rainey in the eighth. The Reds intentionally walked Williams to load the bases for Kingery and he made them pay with a booming shot into the left-field seats.
Kingery started at third base in place of Maikel Franco.
Despite having seven hits (including two homers), a walk and 11 RBIs in his previous four games, Franco got the night off. It wasn't necessarily a matchup decision, manager Gabe Kapler said, because neither Franco nor Kingery had previously faced Bailey.
"It's just a rotation to keep guys fresh," Kapler said. "Frankie has been swinging a real good bat. We feel good about where we're trending with Frankie. It's just an opportunity to get somebody else in the lineup. We've got a lot of good players and we need to find ways to get them all in there and this is one of those ways."
