By Mark Sheldon

The Reds lineup found its way out of the barren wilderness it had been in of late, and the hitters could enjoy the moment on Sunday afternoon.

It wasn’t just that the Reds put together some big hits and home runs for a 12-4 win over the Rays that avoided a three-game sweep. It was that Cincinnati kept its foot on the gas and kept adding more runs to keep its opponent well behind.

“It does send the right message to the players,” Reds manager Bryan Price said. “We’ve had a couple of games where we scored early this season and we’ve given the runs back and we haven’t been able to create the separation that we wanted, especially against the Cardinals. It’s important. We did a nice job of that today. Guys were terrific in their at-bats. We didn’t give a lot of at-bats away.”

Brandon Phillips had 3 hits in the game.

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