Reds' Winker, Silva, Amaral fuel Blaze win

Jesse Winker has only spent a couple months in the California League, but he knows the deal.

"A game like today, anything can happen," he said. "It seems like no lead is safe here, you try to score as often as you can."

On a circuit known to produce box scores more suited for football, the Reds' No. 3 prospect homered twice and drove in five runs as Class A Advanced Bakersfield used five long balls to outpace High Desert, 14-8, on Monday afternoon.

Winker went deep in the third inning, a two-run shot off Mavericks starter Tyler Pike, and added a three-run drive in the seventh off reliever Blake Hauser, his ninth of the year, as the Blaze (38-21) used five homers and 19 hits to get ace Ben Lively off the hook.

"It's a lot of fun, especially because we're winning," Winker said. "I think we're five or six games up on Visalia with three series left, so it's fun to try and clinch the first-half title. I just want to help them win every way I can."

Lively (9-1) entered the game with a Cal League-leading 1.48 ERA in 11 starts, but was tagged for five runs on seven hits and three homers over seven innings. The Reds' No. 12 prospect struck out seven of the 27 batters he faced in his worst start of the season.

Winker said the Blaze offense stepped up to back its starter, who grabbed his ninth win despite an off day.

"It was huge because Ben has picked us up all year, he's been dominant," Winker said. "Today was one of those games, one of those Cal League slugfests. We tried to score every inning. If they scored, we tried to bounce back with a few runs. Ben was a bulldog and we had Jimmy Moran come out of the bullpen and do well. It was a great team win."

Leadoff hitter Juan Silva went 4-for-6 with three doubles and four RBIs, while center fielder Beau Amaral raced for an inside-the-park homer, finished a triple shy of the cycle, scored three times and stole two bases. Third baseman Seth Mejias-Brean went 3-for-5 with his ninth homer and designated hitter Dan Wright popped his first home run in the ninth as Bakersfield scored in every inning after the first. Shortstop Zach Vincej added three hits and three runs.

"It's a great feeling [to hit two homers,] but it seems like everyone in our lineup has been doing really well, hitting a lot of balls hard," Winker said. "It makes it fun getting to come up with guys on base, Silva was on base a lot, Wright has been hot all year."

The game featured a combined eight homers, 30 hits and 22 runs. Winker, who also walked twice, said he was sitting on a fastball in his second at-bat in the third after taking a called third strike in his first plate appearance.

"He struck me out on a fastball away and I went up there looking for a fastball out over the plate, just trying to put the barrel on it and hit it hard," he said. "Luckily it got up and out."

The next came in the seventh after Vincej and Silva singled with one out. Bakersfield owned a 9-5 lead at the time, but in High Desert, you never know.

"We're a really good team, we communicate what we see from the pitchers and it seemed like we all had a good approach today," he said. "We were all taking good pitchers' pitches, just trying to get into good counts and put our swings on them.

"It's awesome," he added. "It seemed like everyone put together good at-bats, you know you're going to get five or six at-bats in a game like this, so you want to keep battling, trying to get hits and move guys over." 

Winker, Bakersfield's No. 3 hitter, missed about two weeks earlier this season with a concussion on April 24 after he slammed into the outfield wall chasing down a fly ball in Modesto. He returned to the lineup May 7 and has been heating up since May 21, when he was hitting .283. With 20 hits in 12 games over that span, he has his average up to .320.

"It was my first concussion, and going through the rehab, of course you want to get out and get back as soon as you can," he said. "Our trainers and strength coach did a great job, they took their time with me. It was great, they helped me out a lot, to get me out and feeling good."

The Reds' 2013 Minor League Hitter of the Year posted solid numbers last year to warrant the honor: He batted .281 with 16 homers, 76 RBIs, 18 doubles and a .379 on-base percentage in 112 games for Class A Dayton, a year after he hit .338 in the Rookie-level Pioneer League. The Reds' first-round pick in 2012 is in good shape to build off last season's campaign -- Monday's effort raised his OBP to .417. He's struck out almost as many times as he's walked (38/30) and has seen success against both righties (.326) and left-handers (.302) this year.

While Monday was Winker's first multi-homer game of the season, it wasn't quite his most productive effort this year -- he went yard and knocked in a career-high six runs in his third start April 5 against Modesto. His only other two-homer game came on Aug. 28, 2012 in....

"Billings, Montana," Winker interrupted. "I remember, it was on my oldest brother's birthday, you remember those kind of things."