This time the pitching came through, as the Reds' excellent young starter Alec McInerney, who started the year as their closer with 18 saves then became a starter and finished the year 16-4, 2.34, held the Rays' bats in check before they finally broke through in the 6th, as Tampa Bay evened the series at 1 with a 2-0 win. Danny Romero and McInerney were locked in a scoreless duel until the 6th when Dan Gregory, Seth Williams and Josh Alexander hit consecutive singles to make it 1-0, and then Eric Phillips' double in the 7th moved Jeff Baez up to 3rd where he scored on Gregory's sac fly. Romero meanwhile was great for 6 but ran up a pitch count, giving way to Chris Williams in the 7th. Williams put 2 on with 2 out and Ken Burgess came to the rescue, getting a strikeout to end the threat and then went full beast mode in the 8th, striking out the side (and all lefties to boot!). Kikuo Kawase made things interesting by putting a pair on in the 9th and with 2 out, the dangerous Nelson Gamez was up. Unlike yesterday when Gamez turned the game around, Kawase got him on a lazy fly ball to center to end the game. Jeff Brockman will go up against his old mates in Game 3 in Cincinnati in two days.