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Griffey lifts Reds over Angels

Jun 13, 2007 - 3:38 AM CINCINNATI (Ticker) -- Ken Griffey Jr. could not clear the fence but his long fly ball was enough for the Cincinnati Reds.

Griffey drove in the go-ahead run with a sacrifice fly in the seventh inning to lift the Reds to a 5-3 interleague victory over the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

Rookie Josh Hamilton added two hits and drove in a run as Cincinnati overcame an overpowering performance by Angels starter Kelvim Escobar, who struck out a career-high 14 in six innings.

While Griffey has 578 career home runs, it was his 89th career sacrifice fly to deep right field in the seventh inning off Darren Oliver that was the difference.

"Escobar had everything working but with two strikes he got the splitter down and kept it down," Griffey said. "I swung at some stupid stuff my first time up but you always hope for the best. You always continue to push to get better."

Rookie Dustin Moseley (4-1), a former Reds draft choice suffered his first career loss.

For a notorious hitters' ball park, the Great American Ball Park has been stingy with the runs the last two games.

The Reds had runners on second and third with no outs but Escobar struck out Griffey and Edwin Encarnacion sandwiched around Adam Dunn's sky-high pop-up to third.

"We let that opportunity get by but we got an opportunity back later," Griffey said.

"We'll take Griff in that situation every time and we'll come out ahead a lot more times," Cincinnati manager Jerry Narron said.

Moseley followed a dominating performance by Escobar by allowing one-out singles to Scott Hatteberg and Brandon Phillips to put runners on first and third in the seventh.

Oliver was brought in to face Griffey, who hammered a fly ball onto the warning track, far enough to render Vladimir Guerrero's strong right arm useless.

Reds starter Bronson Arroyo and Escobar each looked like they would continue the trend set by Sunday's 12-inning, 1-0 win by Cincinnati over Cleveland.

Arroyo has been struggling with five straight defeats over his last six starts, with a ghastly 16.25 ERA in his last four outings.

Arroyo started well on Tuesday, extending the pitching staff's scoreless string to 15 innings before Casey Kotchman stroked his eight home run into the right field bleachers in the fourth inning.

After striking out the next two batters, Arroyo allowed singles to Reggie Willits and Escobar, who became the third straight American League starter to hit safely. Chone Figgins followed with a double to plate Willets for a 2-0 lead.

Escobar had one previous career start against the Reds, pitching a shutout here in Great American Ball Park on June 8, 2003, as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays. Escobar is coming off a complete-game 5-1 win over the Minnesota Twins.

The Angels' righthander stymied the Reds for three innings until Griffey and Dunn started the fourth inning with singles. He struck out Encarnacion for his ninth strikeout but Hamilton doubled Griffey home to halve the deficit.

With Dunn at third and Hamilton at second, Alex Gonzalez hit a ground ball to Orlando Cabrera at shortstop. Dunn scored easily but Hamilton made a great hesitation slide at third and Figgins missed him with the tag. David Ross executed a perfect suicide squeeze to score Hamilton for a 3-2 lead.

"I pride myself on doing the little things to help," Ross said. "Sometimes it's tough batting in front of the pitcher."

Los Angeles' Gary Matthews Jr. tied the game in the fifth with his ninth home run.

Arroyo finished with six innings, allowing three runs on nine hits and three walks. He struck out five.

Escobar surrendered three runs on five hits in his six innings. He walked one to go with the 14 strikeouts.

"I was able to put guys away with fastballs, splitters and sliders," Escobar said. "Everything we working good - my changeup, my fastball. I punched guys out with all of my pitches."

Despite his success here, Escobar isn't a big fan of this ballpark.

"Not really. I think this ballpark has short fences," Escobar said. "Two games and I've done pretty good. I only have two hits in my career and they were both here. It's a hitter's park."

Rookie Jon Coutlangus (3-1) pitched a clean seventh to pick up the win and Gary Majewski, Mike Stanton and David Weathers took care of the eighth and ninth.

Weathers got the last four outs to earn his 13th save in 15 tries.

"Tonight a couple of things went our way. You have to have that," Weathers said. "It's a lot easier for any pitcher to come in with a clean inning."