Cincinnati Reds belt 3 HRs in a row to beat Arizona Diamondbacks for fourth straight win

Some of the Cincinnati Reds believe it’s too early in the season to start scoreboard watching.

But that doesn’t mean the scoreboards shouldn’t watch out for themselves.

Witness the bottom of the sixth inning Saturday at Great American Ball Park after the Arizona Diamondbacks punched first in a Brandon-on-Brandon pitcher’s duel for the first run of the game in the top of the inning.

TJ Friedl, Matt McLain and Jake Fraley responded with a right-left-right combination of blows worth nearly a quarter-mile of solo home runs — and eventually a fourth consecutive Reds victory.

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The Reds’ first trio of consecutive home runs since three guys no longer on the roster did it a year ago at Yankee Stadium gave these surprising young contenders a 4-2 victory and clinched a series win against one of the teams tied for the National League’s top wild-card spot entering the day.

“No one’s even thinking about the wild card,” said rising rookie Brandon Williamson (2-2), whose best performance of a 12-start career/season kept him around long enough to benefit enough from the fireworks to earn the win.

“We’re just thinking we want to win the division.”

With one game left before they see the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers on the road for their last series of the season against them, the Reds moved to one game back of first, pending the Brewers’ late game against the Braves.

The Brewers have won seven of nine meetings so far, including a three-game sweep at GABP out of the All-Star break.

Meanwhile, in the wild-card race, the Reds, Philadelphia Phillies and Miami Marlins entered Saturday tied for the third and final NL playoff spot — 1 1/2 games back of the Diamondbacks and San Francisco Giants.

Not that too many of them are actually scoreboard watching.

“There’s too much baseball to be played to be doing that,” Nick Senzel said.

All the same, with Miami’s loss earlier in the day, the Reds finished their own game assured of no worse than a tie with the Phillies for that last spot.

Albeit, with 62 games left on the schedule — to Senzel’s point.

“We’re not even in a spot to think about that,” Senzel said. “Our team hasn’t been there in so long we don’t even need to think about it. We need to just think about winning today’s game. We have too much baseball left to be scoreboard watching or looking at the wild card.”

Until then, check out Game No. 100 this season for the Reds — a team that had that many losses last year.

Williamson, who retired the first 12 he faced and didn’t allow a hit until the fifth, turned in a second straight quality start and dropped his July ERA in four starts to 2.25 (20 innings, including three in a rain-shortened start)

Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt, who entered the game with a 9.82 ERA, matched Williamson zero-for-zero until the three-batter outburst in the sixth — retiring 15 straight until then, after having loaded the bases with none out in the first.

The Reds added another run in the eighth when Spencer Steer and Friedl opened the inning with a single and double. Elly De La Cruz, who got a scheduled day off from the start, came off the bench to pinch run for Steer at third and scored on Fraley’s one-out grounder to first.

Rookie of the year front-runner Corbin Carroll homered off Alexis Diaz in the ninth for his first hit of the series.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: TJ Friedl, Matt McLain, Jake Fraley hit consecutive HRs to lift Reds