Brown leads A's power display with 2-HR game

CINCINNATI -- The A’s not only proved they could take a punch Wednesday night, they showed they could punch back.

They put that tried-and-true boxing approach to good use in winning a pitchers' duel-turned-slugfest at Great American Ball Park.

Seth Brown crushed a three-run homer to the grass berm in center in the eighth inning for his second homer of the night and Oakland’s fourth of the game to erase a one-run deficit and carry the A’s to a 9-6 win over the Reds.

Thanks to a six-run seventh, the Reds had rallied from 5-0 down to take a one-run lead into the eighth.

Brown victimized Reds reliever Emilio Pagán (3-4), who gave up a single to JJ Bleday and a ground-rule double to Shea Langeliers before the go-ahead homer. Pagán was charged with four runs on five hits in Oakland’s decisive four-run eighth.

“Punch back. That's the thing. When you go out there, baseball is crazy, and you're going to have innings like that, and you’ve got to be able to go out and punch back,” Brown explained. “And that's what our mindset is.”

There was no sense of panic or shock as the A’s made their way into the dugout before taking their hacks in the eighth.

“Come back in and it's like, ‘All right, it's time to punch back.’ Guys are grinding right now and putting themselves in good counts and putting good swings on baseballs,” Brown said.

Brown got two fastballs to hit over the middle of the plate Wednesday and didn’t miss either one. He belted a first-pitch fastball from former A’s reliever Sam Moll for his 11th home run of the season in the fourth.

Then, after the first two batters reached in the eighth, he crushed a fastball from Pagán to the grass backdrop in center.

“In that situation, we’ve got to get a run in somehow,” Brown said. “And so for me, it's just moving the line. It’s getting a good pitch to hit if he's going to pitch to me. But also understanding that there's a base open, so trying to be a little bit selective.”

“I made, in my opinion, an inexcusable mistake,” lamented Pagán. “I missed with a fastball in the zone to maybe their best fastball hitter in a spot where I had executed a couple of really good pitches to get to a two-strike count. I got the fastball above the zone twice. I sped him up with a cutter in. I had a lot of different ways to go and I threw the wrong pitch. And it sucks.”

Lawrence Butler homered on the game’s third pitch off emergency starter Fernando Cruz for a 1-0 Oakland lead and Brent Rooker added his team-leading 31st homer in the sixth.

A game dominated by starting pitching early was finished off by another power display from the Athletics, who have belted seven home runs in capturing the first two games of the three-game set.

Mason Miller recorded the save for the second straight night, giving him 23 saves in 25 chances and matching Huston Street’s mark in 2005 for second-most saves by a rookie Oakland reliever. Andrew Bailey (2009) holds the record with 26.

Early on, it didn’t appear the A’s would need all the power they put on display for a second straight night.

Oakland starter Osvaldo Bido was cruising, retiring the first 13 batters he faced and allowing just one hit through six innings before running out of gas to start the seventh, allowing two more hits before being pulled.

Bido and the A’s bullpen could not hold a 5-0 lead and gave up six runs in the seventh. The Cincinnati rally featured four straight two-out hits, capped by Will Benson’s go-ahead three-run homer off reliever Michel Otañez.

“That inning there, we haven't had anything like that very much this season,” A’s manager Mark Kotsay said of the seventh. “And to show the fight to answer back in that fashion, it's just showing the character of the group right now. They've got confidence. The offense has confidence and really that in itself, is how you win baseball games really, and it's great to see that from this group right now.”