Andrew Abbott won his fourth straight start while Nathaniel Lowe doubled twice and drove in three runs as the visiting Cincinnati Reds turned back the Philadelphia Phillies, 9-4, on Wednesday in the rubber game of the series in Philadelphia.
Cincinnati earned a split of their six-game road trip while Philadelphia lost for just the sixth time in 22 games and suffered their first series loss under new manager Don Mattingly.
The Phillies took a 1-0 lead in the first without benefit of a hit. Trea Turner walked and stole second and made it to third on a throwing error from Reds catcher P.J. Higgins. After Adolis Garcia worked the second walk, Bryce Harper drove Turner home with a sacrifice fly.
The Reds answered with three runs in the second off Philadelphia starter and loser Aaron Nola (2-4). Sal Stewart opened the inning with a double and Spencer Steer singled. Lowe doubled home Stewart, before Will Benson’s groundout to first made it 2-1.
Higgins followed with a single to left for a 3-1 lead. Higgins followed with another RBI single in the fourth for a 4-1 lead.
After Cincinnati made it 5-1 on a Dane Myers RBI double in the sixth, the Phillies knocked Abbott out of the game in the bottom of the inning on a one-out solo homer from Alec Bohm, his fifth of the season. Edmundo Sosa followed with a two-run homer off reliever Brock Burke to cut Cincinnati’s lead to 5-4. The two homers extended Philadelphia’s homer streak to 17 games.
Abbott (4-2), who earned his fourth straight win, held the Phillies to two runs (one earned) on three hits over 5 1/3 innings.
Brandon Marsh collected Philadelphia’s first hit with one out in the fourth inning, a slow infield grounder that second baseman Spencer Steer couldn’t handle. But on the next play, Steer leaped high in the air to his left and nabbed a soft liner from Edmundo Sosa and threw to first to easily double off Marsh to end the inning.
Lowe’s two-run double in the seventh expanded Cincinnati’s lead to 7-4 before Sal Stewart added a two-run homer in the ninth for the final margin.
