PITTSBURGH – For many reasons on Saturday, it was a home run that meant a lot for Reds slugger Eugenio Suárez. On the field, Suárez's three-run homer in the top of the ninth inning lifted the Reds to a 9-7 victory over the Pirates and locked in a series victory with back-to-back wins. It was also a hard-scrabble game filled with lost leads and messy conditions because of showers. “What a nice swing," manager Terry Francona said. "And on a day when there were a lot of ups and downs, it was nice to finish on an up.” Off the field, Suárez was thinking a lot about his home country of Venezuela, which endured a pair of massive earthquakes on Wednesday that killed more than one thousand people. “It’s tough. You always have your country in your heart and you want to do something for them too, to tell everybody that even if we play baseball we feel their pain too," Suárez said. Against Pirates closer Gregory Soto in the ninth, Edwin Arroyo hit a leadoff single to right field and Elly De La Cruz drew a walk. Sal Stewart grounded into a double play that threatened to derail the budding rally. JJ Bleday extended the game with a walk on a full count to set up Suárez, who was down to his final strike. He saw a 2-2 sinker down and away from Soto and drove it to the opposite field, and watched the ball carry into the right-field seats. "I don’t want to be the last out and against that guy, I know pretty much how he’s been pitching me lately," Suárez said. "The previous pitch, he got me with the same pitch. I was ready for that one, at least to put in play. That’s all I wanted … be ready for something hard in my strike zone. Thank God I was able to put that one in play and give the lead to our team and win the game.”
