CINCINNATI -- Since Great American Ball Park opened in 2003, it has been notorious as an extremely cozy place for hitters to slug home runs. From Ken Griffey Jr. and Adam Dunn to Joey Votto and even Nick Castellanos, they have long exploited their home-field advantage.

The 2023 Reds? Not so much. In many of their wins, homers haven't been the offensive focal point. The only homer they hit in the whole series -- as they took two of three -- was Spencer Steer's solo drive in the fifth inning that provided the punctuation mark for the 5-0 victory over the Mets on Thursday in the series finale.

"Who says we have to hit home runs? You just have to get runs across the plate," left fielder Jake Fraley said. "It doesn’t matter how you do it. I think we do a good job of just doing that."

Against Mets starting pitcher Kodai Senga, Cincinnati jumped out to a 4-0 first-inning lead, with all of the runs crossing with two outs.

Jonathan India got it started with a leadoff double to left field. After the next two hitters were retired, Fraley blooped a ball to center field with a 68.9 mph exit velocity that dropped in for an RBI single. After Tyler Stephenson added a single to right field that sent Fraley to third base, Nick Senzel's RBI double to right-center field provided the second run.

"Know there is someone behind you that is eager to do the job if you don’t do it in that situation," Fraley said. "Collectively taking that aim and understanding that, it has allowed us to take that pressure off whoever is in that individual situation. We’ve been rolling and taking advantage of those opportunities when they are given to us."

In a 2-2 count against Senga, Henry Ramos did just that. He looked at a forkball below the strike zone for a ball and fouled off a fastball to stay alive. A full-count sweeper that was low gave Ramos a walk to extend the rally.

Kevin Newman followed with a two-run single to left field to make it a four-run game. Ramos ran aggressively and made a nice slide to reach third base, while Newman took second base on the throw.

"[Ramos] had a really tough at-bat against their starter," Reds manager David Bell said. "Laid off a tough pitch 3-2, led to Kevin Newman’s hit. Four runs is quite a bit different than two right there. Just those little things that we know are actually big things.”

The Reds rank 28th in the Major Leagues this season in homers with 28, 21 of which have come at home. But since 2003, GABP has a 2.67 homers-per-game average that is the second most among all MLB ballparks just behind Yankee Stadium (2.74).

"I think that's kind of been our identity, next-man-up mentality," Newman said. "Just overall, big team contributions. Just getting those big innings, it puts us in a really good spot."

During the previous homestand, the Reds swept the Rangers in a three-game series while scoring 19 runs. Only two runs came via the homer, on Senzel's walk-off shot in the April 26 finale.

Steer's homer off Senga came in the fifth inning on a drive to left-center field. He is the team leader in homers, with just five. On the Mets, Pete Alonso has slugged 13 to lead MLB, including two in the series. Cincinnati's players have also heeded the directive to take more chances and be aggressive on the bases to create opportunities.

"Getting into scoring position when maybe you weren't if you weren't pushing a little bit -- that's huge for us," Newman said. "All it takes is another base hit and it's a run. I think the homers are going to come, obviously. Hopefully down the road, we'll get a few out. Spence had a great swing today and gave us an extra run late, which is awesome. But I think we're really starting to form an identity and we're really proud of the way we're playing."

On the pitching side, it also took a collective effort to notch a shutout. Reliever Derek Law served as the opener and worked 1 1/3 innings. Ben Lively followed with three innings and was credited with his first big league win since 2017. Lucas Sims took over in the fifth and pitched 1 2/3 innings. Kevin Herget finished with a three-inning save, the first of his career.

“It was a great win for our team," Bell said. "A lot of really just team type of attitude that led to our win today."