Chase Burns worked six strong innings, and the Cincinnati Reds took advantage of a critical fifth-inning fielding error to top the visiting Houston Astros 3-1 on Saturday and snap a season-worst eight-game losing skid.
The Reds set the table for a rubber match on Sunday for this three-game interleague series. Cincinnati did so by scoring three runs in the bottom of the fifth against Astros right-hander Spencer Arrighetti (4-1), who suffered his first defeat in five starts this season.
Arrighetti was perfect through two innings and worked around a leadoff walk to Will Benson in the third. He closed that frame with a strikeout of TJ Friedl.
Leading 1-0, Arrighetti fanned Nathanel Lowe to open the fifth before the Reds rallied, starting with a Spencer Steer single. Benson worked his second walk against Arrighetti before the game pivoted when right fielder Cam Smith dropped a Jose Trevino fly ball. That loaded the bases for Matt McLain, who delivered a two-run single to left, scoring Steer and Benson for a 2-1 lead.
Three batters later, De La Cruz slapped a single to left, plating Trevino. Zach Cole threw out McLain at the plate to end the inning, but the damage was done. Arrighetti recorded a pair of outs in the sixth before departing. He allowed three runs, one earned, on five hits and three walks with five strikeouts.
Burns (4-1) retired the side in order only once, doing so in the top of the third, and he matched his season low with two strikeouts. But he induced Isaac Paredes to ground into an inning-ending double play in the first and stranded runners in the second, fourth, fifth and sixth innings, with Cole and Yordan Alvarez left at second base in the second and sixth.
Branden Shewmake smacked his third home run with two outs in the fifth to break the scoreless tie, but Burns held firm. Brock Burke, Graham Ashcraft and Pierce Johnson combined for three scoreless innings of relief for Cincinnati.
