Back-to-back-to-back ... plus 1?! Reds' 4-homer inning features 3 straight blasts

CINCINNATI -- Good news and good results had been in short supply for the Reds' lineup lately, which made Wednesday's performance vs. the Phillies at Great American Ball Park some satisfying and needed nectar.

An explanation by the numbers …

5: The number of home runs hit by the Reds during their 11-5 win over the Phillies, tying a season high.

4: The club-record-tying amount of homers that were slugged during the bottom of the fourth inning.

3: Consecutive homers hit by Cincinnati during that big fourth inning.

2: Homers provided by Sal Stewart during another big game for the rookie. Both were hit to the opposite field.

Put it together and the Reds (42-49) got one big win after they had dropped 10 of their previous 14 games. It came one night after they managed five hits with a season-high 18 strikeouts in a 4-1 loss to Philadelphia on Tuesday.

“It was a big night against a really, really, really good team," Stewart said. "Felt good to win like that. It was just a great day overall.”

The offensive onslaught bolstered starting pitcher Chase Burns, who had an off night while issuing a career-high six walks over five innings while allowing three runs and three hits with two strikeouts.

Last in the National League Central standings and way back in the NL Wild Card race, Cincinnati is ranked 29th in batting average (.228) -- ahead of only San Diego -- and 23rd in both runs and OPS.

Before the game, Stewart and JJ Bleday were hitting inside against the Trajekt machine, which can simulate the stuff of opposing pitchers.

"And he was being a little smart [aleck] the whole time," Bleday said. "He was going oppo, oppo, oppo home run, so I wasn’t surprised when he had two oppo bombs today. The kid’s got all the confidence in the world and it’s fun to watch.”

The Reds were trailing 2-0 when Stewart thought he had drawn ball four and prepared to take first base, only for the pitch to be called a strike. His ABS challenge wasn't successful and left him instead with a full count.

“Reset and get back into my zone," Stewart said. "I thought the ball was just off, but I was wrong. I had to get back in the count and get going.”

Given a fastball from Phillies starter Alan Rangel with De La Cruz on second base, Stewart lifted the ball high and it carried into the right-field seats for a game-tying homer.

Cincinnati's lineup erupted in the bottom of the fourth. Noelvi Marte led off by pulling Rangel's 0-2 changeup to left field for his sixth homer of the season to give the Reds the lead. With two outs and Edwin Arroyo on third base, De La Cruz got a 1-1 slider from lefty reliever Tanner Banks and drove it the other way to right field for a two-run homer, his 14th. In his previous 13 games since coming off a three-week stint on the injured list, De La Cruz was batting .220 with one homer and a double.

Stewart made it back-to-back by hitting an 0-2 fastball from Banks into the right-field seats. That gave the 22-year-old Stewart 19 homers, the second-most for a Reds rookie in his first 91 games of a season, behind only Hall of Famer Frank Robinson's 22.

“I just feel like if I can let the fastball travel as deep as I can, then I can kind of stay with the offspeed pitches and it makes me more of a difficult out," Stewart said of his opposite-field hitting prowess. "I just try to be as complete as I can be.”

Like Burns, Stewart will be headed to his first All-Star Game on Tuesday in Philadelphia, the seventh time a Reds rookie has made it and the first since reliever Scott Williamson in 1999.

Stewart leads the Reds and all NL rookies in homers and RBIs (64), while also leading the team in doubles (21), walks (45) and extra-base hits (40).

Bleday made it three in a row when he drove Banks' 2-1 slider to right field for his 14th homer and his first since June 15. Since that day, Bleday had been hitting just .133 with a .434 OPS over the next 19 games entering Wednesday.

The last time the Reds hit four homers in one inning came on July 4, 2010, vs. the Cubs at Wrigley Field, where Brandon Phillips, Jonny Gomes, Corky Miller and Drew Stubbs all went deep in the seventh. Their last instance of back-to-back-to-back homers came vs. the Diamondbacks on July 22, 2023 (TJ Friedl, Matt McLain and Jake Fraley).

“It’s cool. I’ve never been part of something like that," Bleday said. "I’m not trying to do it or anything like that. Just watched them hit some bombs and just thought the opportunity was cool and it went in our favor.”