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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Cincinnati Reds struggled mightily to win games in April and May, but they've been unbeatable thus far in June.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They can improve to 5-0 this month with a second consecutive three-game home series sweep of the NL East-leading Washington Nationals on Sunday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Cincinnati (21-35) remains stuck at the bottom of the Central Division, but has shown life while outscoring Colorado and Washington 31-11 in June. Jay Bruce and Joey Votto each homered off Stephen Strasburg and Adam Duvall belted a tiebreaking three-run shot in Saturday's 6-3 victory.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"Just a lot of things going right with the offense, and that's a great thing,\" said Reds manager Bryan Price, whose club has totaled 22 home runs while going deep in nine straight contests.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The Reds have won seven of eight against the Nationals (33-23), who had won four in a row prior to this series. Cincinnati's last series sweep came against Philadelphia to open the season.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bruce is batting .382 with four home runs and eight RBIs in eight games while Votto is hitting .348 with three homers and seven RBIs in the last six.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"Joey (Votto)'s taking better swings,\" Price said. \"Jay (Bruce) has been driving the ball well.\"&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Duvall has homered in three straight games, and gone deep nine times in his last 13.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Perhaps more importantly, a Cincinnati pitching staff that posted a major league-worst 5.83 ERA in April and May, has a 2.50 ERA this month.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Jon Moscot (0-3, 7.13 ERA) hopes for a better outing than he put forth Tuesday, when he allowed seven runs and four homers in two innings of a 17-4 loss at Colorado after being activated from the disabled list earlier in the day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;''Every mistake I made got hit,'' said Moscot, who also was clipped in the ear by a pitch while batting. ''I would say there were a couple of pitches, a couple of balls that were hit that I was a little bit surprised by the result.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;''I've got to be better than that. Two innings is just not good. It's frustrating.''&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This will be the right-hander's first appearance against the Nationals, who will try to get back on track while hoping for the best after Strasburg left because of a calf cramp with one out in the sixth inning Saturday. Washington had won 15 straight games started by Strasburg, who claimed to be fine after the contest.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Since giving up seven runs and hits in five innings during a 7-1 loss to Miami on May 14, Washington's Tanner Roark (4-4, 2.70) has yielded four earned and 15 hits over 20 2/3 to win two of the next three. Two of those runs were surrendered over seven innings of Monday's 4-3 victory at Philadelphia.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The right-hander has thrived while going 1-1 with a 1.89 ERA against Cincinnati.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Danny Espinosa and Anthony Rend\u00F3n homered for two of Washington's three hits Saturday. Five of Espinosa's six hits in 30 at-bats over his last nine games have left the park.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bryce Harper is 1 for 7 in the series, and 5 for 35 in his last 11 games. He's a lifetime .160 hitter in 13 games at Great American Ballpark.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/mlb/2014/07/24/ap-bbn-nationals-reds-preview>