ST. LOUIS -- Fight, claw, scratch -- whatever it takes at this point is what the Reds must do for wins that keep their playoff hopes alive.
In a game where they had multiple leads that didn't hold up, the Reds emerged with an 11-6 victory over the Cardinals on Monday at Busch Stadium. Cincinnati (75-75) inched to within two games of the idle Mets for the final National League Wild Card berth with 12 games remaining in the regular season.
“We need to win desperately. We found a way tonight, which was really good," manager Terry Francona said.
The Reds, which were coming off being swept in three games by the A's out west, had leads of 1-0 through two innings, 3-1 through the third and 6-4 after the seventh. All of them went away during the night, but the offense kept picking up the pitching staff.
“We’re resilient. I think we’ve shown that," said rookie first baseman Sal Stewart, who hit a solo homer off the face of the left field upper deck in the second inning. "When I got here, I wanted to continue that. You could tell today. Everyone had great at-bats. Even when they punched us, we punched right back. That’s what this team is about.”
It was a 6-6 game in the top of the eighth when Stewart hit a one-out single before Tyler Stephenson and Elly De La Cruz drew back-to-back walks to load the bases. Pinch-hitting for Ke'Bryan Hayes, Will Benson lifted his sacrifice fly to left field that was deep enough to easily score Stewart with what eventually became the game-winning run.
Four more Reds scored in the top of the ninth, with Stephenson's bases-loaded double to left field being the big blow that scored three.
That was the second hit of the night for Stephenson, who also opened the top of the seventh inning with a single to left-center field against Cardinals reliever Chris Roycroft with the Reds trailing, 4-3. De La Cruz then drew a walk to put the go-ahead run on base. After the runners were moved 90 feet by Hayes' groundout to the shortstop, both Stephenson and De La Cruz scored when Matt McLain's two-run double to right field bounced over the fence.
The comeback was a rebound from the bottom of the sixth inning, when Reds starter Zack Littell gave up three runs and the lead to St. Louis -- all with two outs. Alec Burleson hit a two-run double to the gap in left-center field, and Willson Contreras followed with the go-ahead RBI single to end Littell's night.
“It’s good to see us respond to some situations," Stephenson said. "Littell threw well and then they scratched a few and we responded back. It was a big one.”
St. Louis evened the game with two runs in the bottom of the seventh after Graham Ashcraft gave up hits to the inning's first two batters. The Cardinals scored with two outs against Tony Santillan on RBI singles by Brendan Donovan and Iván Herrera.
In an important high-leverage inning, Connor Phillips pitched a perfect eighth and was awarded the win by the official scorer. Emilio Pagán gave up only a two-out bunt single in a scoreless ninth to close it.
With two teams between them and the Mets -- and the Cardinals not far behind them in the Wild Card standings -- the Reds don't control their own destiny at this point. Trying to pull out wins to save their season is all they can do.
“We’ll take it any way we can," Stephenson said. "Nobody really cares how it is. We’ve got to win every game.”