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Dunn caps rally with walk-off homer as Reds top Indians

May 18, 2008 - 12:14 AM By Douglas Tifft PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

CINCINNATI (Ticker) -- Adam Dunn's bunt attempt did not go well, so he stuck to what he does best.

Dunn belted a three run, walk-off home run in the ninth inning Saturday as the Cincinnati Reds rallied for their fifth straight win, a 4-2 triumph over the Cleveland Indians.

With the Reds down, 2-1, rookie Joey Votto singled and Edwin Encarnacion was hit by a pitch. Dunn followed by crushing a 445-foot shot deep into the bleachers in right field off Masa Kobayashi (2-1).

Dunn's home run - his ninth of the season - came after two failed bunt attempts, which angered the slugger.

"I can bunt, and that makes me mad that I did not get it down, it really does," Dunn said. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that I am one of the top three bunters on the team."

Dunn's homer made a winner of Bill Bray (1-0), who worked a scoreless ninth.

"For me, that's the best feeling that you can have on a baseball field," Dunn said of the walk-off blast. "I love it. Especially with a packed house. It's awesome."

"Once you start coming through, you start believing you can come through, and you start wanting to be in that situation," Reds manager Dusty Baker said of Dunn, who helped the Reds win by working an eighth-inning walk to force in the winning run on Friday night.

The late-inning heroics broke up what was a pitchers' duel for the first seven innings between Cleveland's Fausto Carmona and Cincinnati's Aaron Harang.

Carmona allowed just one run and four hits in 7 1/3 innings with four strikeouts. He lowered his ERA to 2.25 - the fourth-best mark in the American League.

The righthander had his streak of scoreless innings snapped at 14 1/3 when Brandon Phillips tied the game at 1-1 with an RBI single in the sixth.

Jerry Hairston Jr. hit a one-out double to left and advanced to third on a wild pitch. One batter later, Phillips plated Hairston with a single to center.

Meanwhile, Harang's only mistake came in the second, when he allowed an RBI double by Ryan Garko.

Harang yielded one run and eight hits in seven innings with five strikeouts and one walk.

"I enjoy pitching in those (types of games)," Harang said. "It's definitely mentally draining for me because you really have to focus on what pitch you are going to throw and make sure that you execute those pitches every time out."

With Harang out of the game, Ben Francisco gave the Indians a short-lived lead in the eighth as he belted a 3-1 slider from David Weathers to left field for his first home run of the season.