Tucker Barnhart had every reason to shout toward his teammates in the dugout in the 10th inning Friday night against the D-backs.

The eighth-year Reds catcher wasn’t shouting in anger after watching the bullpen blow a five-run lead late in the game. Instead, Barnhart was shouting in a moment of pure excitement following a go-ahead single in extras that helped the Reds to a 6-5 win at Chase Field.

"Just extremely, extremely pumped up,” Barnhart said. “It was a roller coaster. We got out to a lead and kind of gave it up there a little bit. With the way the extra innings are now, you never know what’s going to happen. I was pumped. I kind of blacked out a little bit.”

The win brought the Reds’ record to 6-1 -- the best in the Majors -- for the first time since 1994. They also remain on one of the hottest-ever offensive streaks to begin a season. The six runs Cincinnati scored Friday brings its total to 63 through its first seven games, the best mark in franchise history and tied for the third-most among active franchises in the modern era (since 1900).

"Our guys have worked really hard to get into a position where we could start off well, and it’s certainly happened,” Reds manager David Bell said. “More than anything, we’re all happy with all aspects of the game. The pitching, the defense, the baserunning has been good. Obviously the offense. Guys are working at it, continuing to come. We did the same thing last year, it just now is showing up more and more.

“Just really happy for our guys."

For most of the night, center fielder Tyler Naquin's monster fourth-inning home run -- which gave him the Major League lead with five -- felt destined to be the highlight.

Naquin’s 454-foot shot extended Cincinnati’s lead to 2-0, and by the time that the seventh inning rolled around, the lead had grown to five.

The secondary story was likely left fielder Jesse Winker’s return to the lineup following a bout with the flu, as he went 3-for-3 with an RBI and nearly hit a home run on the first pitch of the game. But in what seemed like the blink of an eye, the Reds’ bullpen caved in by allowing five runs in the seventh and eighth innings combined, completely changing the dynamics of the game.

“That’s baseball. That’s baseball,” Reds closer Amir Garrett said. “You can be up 11-0 ... just as fast as we put up five runs, another team could put up five runs. That’s just the way baseball works sometimes.”

Getting to the 10th inning was tough enough, but the Reds then needed a different hero to emerge.

It wasn't going to be Naquin after he was pinch-hit for earlier in the inning. It wasn’t going to be Winker, either after he was subbed out in the sixth due to calf cramps, which Bell said of after the game that it was, “no big deal.”

Barnhart -- a two-time Gold Glove Award winner (2017, ‘20) -- is known more for his glove than his bat. 

But Barnhart has quietly been one of the better-hitting catchers in the Majors through the first week of the season, having produced a .444/.474/.748 slash through his first five games.

Barnhart already had two doubles earlier in the game, with the first setting the stage for the Reds’ first run, before the second gave them their biggest lead of the night.

It was only fitting, then, that Barnhart -- who became a lefty-only batter in 2019 and has historically struggled against left-handed pitching -- would take over the late-inning heroics with the game-winning single.

“He has worked so hard,” Bell said. “He has been a good player for a long time, but switching to left-only, not switch-hitting, he has had to work extra hard on facing the left-handers, and he came up and had a couple big hits. Obviously the biggest one there in the 10th. [I’m] really happy for him.”