ST. LOUIS _ The top four hitters in the Cincinnati lineup homered with three coming against St. Louis Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas, and the Reds hit five homers total in a 12-1 win at Busch Stadium on Friday night.
Eugenio Suarez started things with a solo homer in the first inning. Jesse Winker and Joey Votto added solo shots against Mikolas, and Yasiel Puig hit a two-run homer in the eighth. Jose Peraza added a solo homer in the ninth.
Things deteriorated enough in the ninth inning that Jedd Gyorko made his second career appearance as a pitcher and struck out the only batter he faced to end the inning.
The Cardinals, who had a five-game win streak snapped, could not generate much offense with the only run coming on an RBI-single by Paul DeJong in the seventh inning. They had base runners in each of the first six innings but couldn't get anyone past second base against Reds starter Anthony DeSclafani.
DeSclafani did not allow a run over six innings as he limited the Cardinals to four hits, all singles. The Reds entered the game last in the majors with a .200 team average but collected 14 hits against six St. Louis pitchers.
They piled on in the ninth inning after the Peraza homer. The Reds went on to collect five more runs and five hits, including a three-run double by Curt Casali, against Dominic Leone.
Yadier Molina extended hit hitting streak to 13 games with a second-inning single and Paul Goldschmidt lengthened his streak to 12 games with a single.
The Reds continued to bash home runs when Puig connected in the eighth inning for a two-run blast to center field to give the Reds a 6-1 lead over the Cardinals at Bush Stadium.
Puig's fourth homer followed a walk issued to Winker by reliever Tyler Webb.
It came after the Cardinals scored their first run in the seventh. They had three singles and a walk in the inning but managed only one run because of a double play.
Matt Carpenter walked with two outs, went to third on a single by Paul Goldschmidt, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games, and scored on a single by Paul DeJong.
