Relentless Yanks top Reds for 6th straight W

CINCINNATI -- If there was any lingering grogginess for the Yankees one night after an 18-inning game and early-morning arrival into town, it didn't show up on the field on Monday at Great American Ball Park. Behind Masahiro Tanaka's effort on the mound and plenty of offense, New York took a 10-4 victory over the Reds.
"It's great," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "It's a tough performance by our guys. Guys are really fatigued. To be able to come and get three [first-inning runs] and let Tanaka go to work, then to get another the next inning and put 10 on the board, it shows you a lot about these guys."
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A night after outlasting the Cubs in a six-hour epic, the Yankees extended their winning streak to six games while snapping Cincinnati's win streak at five. The Yankees remained a half-game ahead of second-place Baltimore atop the American League East, while the Reds dropped into second place in the National League Central, a half-game behind St. Louis. 

Tanaka gave a tired bullpen a break by working seven innings, allowing four runs (three earned) on 10 hits with one walk and six strikeouts.

Former Yankees farmhand Rookie Davis labored in his start for the Reds, throwing 91 pitches over 4 1/3 innings and allowing five runs (four earned) on seven hits, with three walks and four strikeouts. The door was opened for a big inning for New York when Davis opened the game with an error, accidentally not touching first base while receiving a throw from Joey Votto as Brett Gardner raced to first on a groundout. It led to a two-run single by Gary Sánchez and Didi Gregorius' RBI single for a 3-0 lead.
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Aaron Hicks added an RBI single in the second inning, and after Davis was chased following a pair of one-out singles in the fifth, Gregorius added a sacrifice fly to cap a two-RBI night. In a wild top of the seventh for reliever Drew Storen, three batters were hit by a pitch -- including Chase Headley with the bases loaded -- helping the Yanks forge a 7-2 lead.

Add-on runs would burn the Reds even after Tanaka's two-out walk in the seventh was followed by a Votto two-run homer. Matt Holliday and Gardner each smoked a homer against Barrett Astin in the eighth inning.

MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Sanchez gets it started: Sanchez reached base five times in the game, collecting three hits and one walk around a hit-by-pitch, but it was his one-out single in the first that helped the Yankees take control of the game. The hard single through the left side on a 1-0 fastball plated Gardner and Hicks to make it a 2-0 game and set the tone.

That empty feeling: Following an error by Holliday, who made a rare start at first base, to lead off the fourth inning, the Reds followed with a single by Eugenio Suárez and a rocket off Holliday's glove by Scott Schebler that went for a single. That put Tanaka in a bases-loaded, no-out situation with the go-ahead run at the plate. The right-hander still escaped, getting a popout to second base from José Peraza and a grounder off the bat of Tucker Barnhart to Gregorius, who turned an inning-ending double play.

"Tanaka was good," Reds manager Bryan Price said. "He was throwing the offspeed stuff when he was behind in the count, and that's tough for any team. But we got our hits and we had some opportunities to score and had a couple chances to get ourselves back in the game, but we weren't able to come up with a big hit. In the same respect, we didn't play very well. They had 13 base hits and 24 baserunners. That's not a good sign."
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• Storen became the first Reds pitcher to hit three batters in the same inning since Raul Sanchez hit three in the eighth inning vs. the Phillies on May 15, 1960, in Game 1 of a doubleheader.
"It's frustrating," Girardi said. "We're already beat up. We knew he's not trying to do it. He's struggling with his command. But it is frustrating."

Headley, who took a pitch off the right leg, was the player about whom Girardi was most concerned.
"I was planning on giving him a day off [Tuesday]," Girardi said. "He'll definitely get it now." 
"That's not going to happen too often for anybody, and certainly there was obviously no intent," Price said. "But a very unusual inning, for sure."
• Pinch-hitting in the fifth inning, Arismendy Alcantara notched a single, which extended his streak of hits to seven straight plate appearances -- the longest active streak in the Majors. The last Reds player to do that was Steve Selsky last September. Before that, Bip Roberts collected hits in 10 consecutive plate appearances for Cincinnati from Sept. 19-23, 1992.

WHAT'S NEXT
Yankees: New York will send out CC Sabathia in the final game of the two-game set on Tuesday at 7:10 p.m. ET. It will be Sabathia's 13th career start against the Reds but first since 2013. He is 4-2 with a 2.46 ERA against Cincinnati.
Reds:Tim Adleman will be on the mound vs. New York, attempting to follow up a strong outing on Thursday vs. the Pirates. In a 4-2 victory, Adleman worked six innings and allowed two runs on six hits while throwing 88 pitches.
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