Chris Heisey Come Through In The Pinch

The Reds opened the season without scoring in its first 17 innings, yet they have traded 1-0 games with arch-rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals.

The win was the first for new manager Bryan Price.

"It feels great from a selfish standpoint," Price said. "From a team standpoint it feels even better. It's important to get that first one and get the ball rolling."

The Reds had a great outing by Johnny Cueto on Monday but lost on a Yadier Molina home run.

On Wednesday young Tony Cingrani pitched just as well, shutting down the Cardinals on two hits over seven innings.  In his 19 major league starts, Cingrani has given up no more than five hits in any of them.

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"They just told me that stat," Cingrani said. "I've felt that good before but I don't always get to seven innings because I throw a lot of pitching.  I like to win.  You have confidence, I guess.  You just try to be more confident than the hitter in the box."

Cingrani struck out Matt Adams with runners on first and second and two outs to end the seventh with a slider that locked Adams up,

"It was pretty good, one of seven good ones I threw," Cingrani said.

Cardinals starter Michael Wacha was just as good.

He pitched 6 2/3 innings, allowing three hits and a walk.

Both bullpens kept up the pitching dominance.  The Reds were shut out on Monday.  During modern baseball the most innings the Reds have gone was 13 innings to start a season without scoring.  They failed to score in the first 13 innings in 1909 and the first 13 in 1934.

The Cardinals nearly scored against Manny Parra in the eighth Kolton Wong doubled over Billy Hamilton's head in centerfield with one out.  He was there with two outs when Cardinals' lead off hitter Matt Carpenter was up.  He hit a soft fly into shallow right center.

Zach Cozart went a long way for it and made the catch to end the inning and save a run.  Parra was pumped up and clenched his fist upon seeing the catch.

"I knew Manny was going to try to get him out with sliders so if he hit it on the ground it was going to be up the middle. I shaded him that way,"  Cozart said.  It was one of two such catches the Reds' shortstop made in the game.

The Reds finally broke through in the bottom of the ninth.  Ryan Ludwick hit his second single of the game between short and third.  Todd Frazier followed with a single in the same spot.  Cozart moved them with a bunt.  The Cardinals walked Brayan Pena to load the bases with hard throwing Carlos Martinez on the mound.

Matheny moved outfielder Allen Craig to the infield up the middle at second base.

Pinch hitter Chris Heisey singled to leftcenter to give the Reds the win.

"I didn't even see what Matheny was doing," Heisey said.  "I saw him moving guys around but I was concentrating on hitting the ball hard."

"That was a good matchup for Heisey," Price said. "Chris can hit a fastball no matter how hard they throw it.".