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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
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GAME LOG
CINCINNATI (AP) -- Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr. struck out three times apiece. Twenty Chicago Cubs went down in a row.
Swirling winds made it feel like 18 degrees.
|  | | Barry Larkin had two hits to go along with his usual stellar defense for the Reds. |
On a lousy day for hitting, Pokey Reese hit the hardest one of them all.
Reese's sharp grounder deflected off the leg of third baseman Jeff Huson in the bottom of the 11th inning, rolling free for a single that gave the Cincinnati Reds a chilling 4-3 victory
Saturday.
While the game's biggest swingers had problems making contact,
the Reds' top hitter pulled it out with his second single of the
game.
"The way Pokey's hitting the ball and coming through in the clutch lately, I was happy to see him up there," manager Jack McKeon said.
After the Reds tied it at 3 in the sixth, both teams froze up.
Reds pitchers retired 20 Cubs in a row from the second inning on
and allowed only one hit after the second.
"We didn't get any hits," manager Don Baylor said. "To be in
a 3-3 tie for as long as we were, we got lucky right up until the
end."
Chicago's luck ran out after Mark Guthrie (0-1) gave up a
one-out walk in the 11th to Alex Ochoa, who stole second. After
Aaron Boone was intentionally walked, Guthrie struck out Benito
Santiago with the infield drawn in.
Matt Karchner came in and gave up Reese's one-hop single, which
Huson deflected but couldn't stop.
"That was hit hard," Huson said. "It took off when it hit the
turf. It went off my leg. I didn't even get any leather on that."
The ball rolled toward the outfield and Ochoa raised his arms as
he headed for the plate. The hit left Reese at .440, best among the
Reds' regulars.
"This means a lot," Reese said. "It's against a division team
and we came from behind. Mostly, it was that we never gave up and
stayed with them."
Rob Bell, making his debut for the Reds after a promotion from
Double-A, retired the last 16 batters he faced after a nervous
start. With his pants hiked high to show off the team's bright red
stockings, Bell, 23, struck out nine and allowed three hits in
seven innings.
Danny Graves (1-0) pitched the last two innings for the win.
Griffey had an RBI single -- only his second hit for his hometown
team -- and Boone and Dante Bichette hit solo homers as the Reds
tied it at 3 after six innings.
But Junior took called third strikes in two pivotal at-bats.
Kevin Tapani got him looking with a runner on second in the fifth
inning, and Felix Heredia got him again in the seventh with two
runners aboard and the score tied.
Griffey also struck out swinging in the 10th, leaving him
1-for-4 overall with a walk. He's 2-for-22 in six games with eight
strikeouts and only three balls hit out of the infield.
Sosa matched Junior with three strikeouts, one of them with the
bases loaded against Bell in the second inning. Bell didn't give up
another hit or walk after that pivotal strikeout.
"That's like not knowing any of the information on your history
final and trying to pass it the next day," Bell said of facing
Sosa with the bases loaded in his debut. "It's make-or-break time
right there."
A day after he hit his first homer, Sosa was hitless in five
at-bats, leaving him 3-for-28 this season.
Tapani also came up empty again, leaving him stuck in the
longest losing streak of his career. The right-hander allowed eight
hits and three runs in six innings.
Tapani has lost his last 10 decisions, the longest slump of his
career. He's 0-1 this season and lost his last nine decisions in
1999, when he had a sore shoulder, sore back and two hand injuries.
A cold front that moved in early Saturday dropped the
temperature at game time to 37 degrees. Players from both teams and
some of the umpires wore hoods under their caps and pulled masks
over their mouths to protect against 28 mph wind gusts.
Bell was laying in the outfield stretching a half-hour before
the game when sleet and snow started falling. He was obviously
nervous at the outset, throwing two wild pitches as the Cubs scored
three times in the first two innings.
Tapani doubled home a run for a 3-1 lead in the second and the
Cubs loaded the bases with two outs, bringing up Sosa. He took a
pitched around the outside corner that umpire John Hirschbeck
called strike three. Sosa dropped his bat, arched his back and
threw out his arms over the call, which began a streak of 20 Cubs
going out in order.
Game notes
1B Mark Grace was sore and out of the lineup Saturday. His feet went out from under him when he chased a ball on the rain-slicked warning track Friday night, causing him to land hard.
He pinch hit and flew out in the ninth. ... Rookie LH Daniel Garibay, called up Friday night, got uniform No. 76 -- the second-highest number ever for a Cubs player. Bill Voiselle wore No. 96 in 1950. ... Reese has hit safely in all six Reds games. ... Bichette, only 2-for-19 coming in, was dropped from cleanup to sixth in the order. ... Bell's nine strikeouts were the most by a Reds rookie since Brett Tomko struck out 10 on Aug. 2, 1997 against San Francisco.
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