By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

DENVER - To be successful in baseball, sometimes you have to win despite yourself. By that measure, the Reds are looking pretty darn good.

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Thursday's game

Thursday, they beat the Colorado Rockies 7-2 despite the fact they struck out 16 times - the most for them in a nine-inning game since 1999.

Wednesday, they beat the Rockies 13-11, despite the fact their pitchers walked 10 batters in six innings.

With two victories, the Reds wrapped up their third straight winning series - and they all came after losing the first game.

"We're starting to come around," Aaron Boone said. "After we got beat up in the first game of this series, I was impressed with the way guys came out the next day. There was a sense of urgency, a determination: 'Hey let's go get this one.' "

And the Reds did that, despite an awful outing by starter Ryan Dempster.

Thursday's starter, Jeff Austin, was as good as Dempster was bad. Austin, a 26-year-old right-hander acquired from Kansas City on March 6, went six impressive innings to earn his first big-league win.

"He was outstanding," Reds manager Bob Boone said.

The offense produced three home runs for the second straight game. Aaron Boone was 3-for-4 with a homer and two doubles. Felipe Lopez was 2-for-4 with a solo homer. And Jose Guillen hit his second two-run homer in as many games.

Austin allowed only two hits, walked five and struck out four. He was thoroughly unfazed by pitching in Coors.

"I just stuck to my game plan," he said. "I was keeping the ball down, hitting spots."

Austin is one of four players added after a roster shakeup in Puerto Rico on April 19.

The team is 7-3 since and has moved from seven games back in the National League Central to four games back.

Austin, Chris Reitsma, Brian Reith and Ryan Freel have contributed on the field. But the moves affected the team beyond personnel changes.

"I think the attitude changed a little bit," Sean Casey said. "It shook things up. It shook up the chemistry."

The tangible things include better starting pitching and better defense. The Reds have five quality starts in the last 10 games after having none in the previous nine.

It's harder to quantify the defense. But Boone is better than Brandon Larson was at third, Freel has filled in solidly and Juan Castro spectacularly at second, and Lopez has been better at short.

Offensively, things have gotten a whole lot better. That was key to winning the Colorado series. The Reds scored 20 runs and had 31 hits in the last two games.

The Reds built a Coors-proof lead, if there is such a thing, early Thursday.

An RBI double by Austin Kearns and a two-run homer from Boone gave the Reds a 3-0 lead after one inning.

An RBI double by Boone and a two-run homer from Guillen in the third pushed it to 6-0.

Lopez's solo shot in the fourth concluded the Reds' scoring.

Guillen, inserted into the lineup when Reggie Taylor and Ruben Mateo failed, has been huge offensively. He extended his hitting streak to six games Thursday. He's .423 with three homers and nine RBI in the streak.

Given the big lead, Austin rolled. The Rockies got only one runner to second base through the sixth. Austin wasn't overpowering, but the Rockies had only a handful of hard-hit balls off him.

"He's got a quick arm," Bob Boone said. "His fastball is sneaky fast. That 88, 89 gets there like it's 93, 94."

Austin left after walking the first two hitters in the seventh. They scored an out later on a double off Gabe White.

After that, it was lights out. White and Reith combined to retire the last eight Rockies in a row. The relievers have a 2.78 ERA in the 10-game surge.

"We believe we're going to win," Casey said. "We haven't given up. We keep battling. ... It's going to be interesting to see how it plays out."