By Mark Sheldon - MLB.com Staff
CINCINNATI -- As the Reds' manager, Jerry Narron's name doesn't appear in the box scores. He doesn't hit, pitch, throw or catch.
But count Narron 2-for-2 in pregame decisions that helped his team to back-to-back wins over the past two days.
With banged-up leadoff hitter Ryan Freel in need of a day off on Saturday, Narron moved Brandon Phillips up into the lineup's top spot. It paid off in an 8-6 win over the Braves in which the second baseman slugged two tie-breaking home runs.
"Phillips has done a real good job for us all year," Narron reasoned before the game. "This potentially gives him one more at-bat."
Phillips had three hits and reached base in all five of his plate appearances. However, it was the extra at-bat that batting leadoff afforded him which proved to be the key. There was one out in the eighth when Phillips lifted a 1-2 pitch from reliever Tyler Yates (1-2) for a solo homer that snapped a 6-6 tie.
After the ball landed in the left-field seats, Phillips was in a near-sprint as he circled the bases. He got an extra chance to savor the moment when 33,170 fans at Great American Ball Park called for him to emerge from the dugout.
"This was my first time ever getting a curtain call," Phillips said after the second two-homer game of his career. "It let you know the fans were into it, just like I was. I hit that ball and I didn't know I was running that fast around the bases."
Reliever David Weathers (4-3) pitched a scoreless eighth for the win. Young lefty Bill Bray was called upon to pitch the ninth inning because closer Eddie Guardado was unavailable with left forearm soreness. Bray notched his second save with a one-hit ninth.
On Friday, Narron chose to hold a team meeting, calling for more emotion and better at-bats throughout games. Cincinnati seized the moment and beat Atlanta in a tense 5-4 outcome.
"We were lost for a while," Phillips said. "He opened up our eyes."
"Sometimes you need a little talking to," said center fielder Ken Griffey Jr., who went 2-for-4 with two doubles and two RBIs. "It's not how much you say or what you say. There's a confidence when your manager seems calm. It makes the biggest difference. He just said, 'Hey, go out there and play the game right and start having some fun.' That was the biggest thing."
More evidence of the impact Narron's pep talk had on the team surfaced in the late innings on Saturday. Trying to score an insurance run on Griffey's second double in the eighth, Scott Hatteberg lowered a shoulder and brushed catcher Brian McCann at the plate before scoring. In the ninth, Reds catcher David Ross flipped over a dugout railing in a valiant, if unsuccessful, attempt to catch a foul pop.
After losing five straight, the National League Wild Card-leading Reds have taken two in a row from the Braves and locked up a series win.
"I think everybody in our clubhouse feels like it's right there for us," Narron said. "It's a matter of if we play well. We don't have to play great -- just play well, and do the little things. If we do that, the winning and losing will take care of itself."
Phillips' first homer, a three-run shot to right-center field off Braves starter Jason Shiell, gave the Reds and starter Bronson Arroyo a 6-3 lead.
Arroyo, who requested to be moved up in the rotation to pitch on three days' rest, would be denied again in his ninth attempt for his 10th win. The right-hander, who allowed McCann's three-run homer in the first, gave up a leadoff homer to Adam LaRoche in the sixth that made it a two-run game.
Willy Aybar's two-out single in the sixth on Arroyo's 100th pitch promoted Narron to call on reliever Todd Coffey from the bullpen. Not all of the skipper's decision worked, however; Coffey's first batter, Marcus Giles, hit a game-tying two-run homer to center field.
"I really didn't feel that great all day," said Arroyo, who was charged with five earned runs and eight hits over 5 2/3 innings. "I thought it was a good move by Jerry. Coffey has been throwing the ball pretty well. Giles already had a couple of hits off me."
On June 19, after notching his ninth victory against the Mets, Arroyo was 9-3 with a 2.47 ERA over his first 15 starts. In his nine starts since, he is 0-4 with a 5.31 ERA.
"I've been looking for my 10th win for so long, I'm starting to do so many things," Arroyo said. "It's tough."
Like Arroyo, Phillips was a trade acquisition that has helped take the Reds from the last-place pick of preseason prognosticators to contenders. Phillips was productive at the plate immediately after arriving via an April 7 trade from Cleveland, though he cooled off around the All-Star break.
Now heating up again, the 25-year-old Phillips is batting .351 (20-for-57) over his last 16 games and often flashes a relaxed smile around the clubhouse.
"We definitely would not be anywhere near where we are if we had not gotten him," Narron said of Phillips.
"He's young," said Griffey, who doubled home Phillips in the first inning. "It just brings back how much fun this game is when he gets excited. You take a little bit from it."
A Stone Mountain, Ga., native, Phillips also had some family in attendance to watch as he helped to defeat his hometown team.
"I had my mom, my dad and my younger sister, who is taller than me, but it's cool," Phillips said.
No matter. Phillips walked tall on Saturday.
