While Mark McGwire and Ken Griffey Jr. satisfied the mass audience, Ron Villone and Scott Williamson appealed to purists who appreciate pitching.

        Villone and Williamson limited the potent St. Louis Cardinals to seven hits in the Reds' 3-2 victory.

        Entering the game, St. Louis led both leagues with 194 runs and owned a .294 team average, second in the National League.

        Except for the consecutive homers Jim Edmonds and McGwire hit in the fourth inning, Villone allowed just two Cardinals to reach second base in his 6ö innings. Williamson breezed through the first five batters he faced, then survived two one-out, ninth-inning singles for his second save.

        Villone rebounded from an 8.31 ERA in his last three starts, mainly because he threw 60 strikes in 102 pitches. In his previous appearance last Saturday at Pittsburgh, he fell behind 2-0 on three of the first four hitters he faced. This time, he opened with a strike to 13 of the first 16 Cardinals.

        “I tried to keep the ball down,” said Villone, who yielded five hits while walking three and striking out four. “A couple of times I didn't, but I did what I needed to. That's the bottom line.”

        The Edmonds-McGwire tag team was nothing new. It was the second straight game in which they homered back-to-back, and they have homered in four of St. Louis' last five games. They rank near the top of the league with 11 homers each, and Edmonds leads the league in batting with a .409 average.

        Edmonds homered off of a cut fastball on the first pitch. McGwire hit a 3-1 change-up in setting a Cinergy Field distance record of 473 feet.

        “I'd throw those pitches again,” Villone said. “I can't worry about how far the ball travels. The big thing was, there was nobody on base, which was most important.”

        Asked if he watched McGwire's blast, Villone said, “I looked for one second, but when you hear a ball come off the bat that loud, you don't have to watch it too much.”

        The Reds enjoy watching Williamson, who has allowed one earned run in his last 10 innings — spanning five appearances. “My last three, four times out I've been hitting my spots with my fastball,” he said.

        Late in the game, closer Danny Graves threw briefly in the bullpen. But mostly, it was Williamson's game to finish.

        “He had great stuff,” Reds manager Jack McKeon said. “We didn't have any doubts about leaving him in there.”

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