By John Erardi
The Cincinnati Enquirer

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Sunday's game

The Reds beat the Cubs 5-4 before 24,023 shivering fans (first-pitch temperature 39 degrees) at Great American Ball Park Sunday afternoon.

It would be over-reaching to say the 2-4 Reds have righted themselves . . . or their beleaguered pitching staff . . . or their collective psyches, after watching star center fielder Ken Griffey go down in a heap on the left-field warning track in Saturday's game. He's expected to be out six-10 weeks.

But what the Reds did do Sunday was play a good, old-fashioned game of hardball.

It was, by far, their best game of the young season.

The starters started, the closers closed, the hitters hit.

"We don't have Junior here, but we've still got a team and we've got to win," said Reds shortstop Barry Larkin. "We did today in a great fashion, with a lot of character. It reminded me of the '99 Reds."

The Reds battled and beat Cubs ace Kerry Wood, and showed some backbone in rallying from a 4-0 first-inning deficit with key performances from:

• Starting pitcher Paul Wilson, who blanked the Cubs for 5 2/3 innings after giving up four first-inning runs - only one of them earned;

• Reliever Gabe White, who, with one pitch, escaped from a two-on, two-out jam in a 4-4 game in the seventh inning;

• Reliever Scott Williamson, who got Sammy Sosa to ground into a game-ending double play for the save, his first of the season; and

• Hitters Austin Kearns (second-inning home run off Wood to cut the deficit to 4-1), Brandon Larson (who redeemed himself from two, first-inning throwing errors, by singling off Wood to make it 4-4 in the sixth), and Sean Casey (two RBI off Wood, and a game-winning, solo home run off left-handed reliever Mark Guthrie in the eighth inning).

"(Wilson) made pitches," Reds manager Bob Boone said. "He's going to give up some hits, but he's going to get that ground ball when you need it . . . The first (five) games, that's what we had trouble doing, executing the pitches . . . If you're a pro, you can't fall apart because something bad goes on behind you. That's out of your control. That's part of your training."

Wilson came up big, even in the humor department - which this club could certainly use, given the calamity of Griffey on Saturday and the bludgeoning of Reds pitching for five straight games in the new ballpark.

The Reds played the first inning like they were still in shock. Left fielder Adam Dunn didn't catch a line drive to deep left that he should have handled (it was scored a double). Larson botched a sacrifice bunt and threw the ball away (allowing one run to score). Five batters later, Larson threw away another ball to first after stepping on third for a fielder's choice, as two more runs scored.

Larson bounced back afield in the second, starting a 5-4-3 double play, and he made a nice, diving, back-handed stab and throw in the third.

Enter Wilson's humor.

"He came up to me after the third inning and said, 'I forgot to tell ya' they'd be hitting you a lot of ground balls today," Larson recalled, laughing. "That was pretty cool."

Larson struck out in his first two appearances against Wood.

"I thought maybe he had a patch on one eye from some of those curveballs he swung at," manager Boone said.

When Larson arrived at the plate with two outs in the sixth inning for a third at-bat off Wood with Aaron Boone at third base (triple off the out-of-town scoreboard on the left-field wall) and Dunn at first base (walk), the Reds scoreboard operators could have been flashing goat horns on the Daktronics ProStar VideoPlus Display System.

Larson was all but sprouting a goatee at this point. It's early in the kid's career - the rookie was handed the big-league third baseman's job only six games ago and came into Sunday's game hitting .077 - but he met Wood's curveball flush with a groundball smash up the middle to tie the game.

"I'm proud of the way Brandon Larson bounced back today," said Aaron Boone. "He came up big after a couple of mistakes early."

"Maybe some guys would have folded after those first couple of errors," Larson said.

Casey completed the comeback in the eighth, with his second home run of the season.

"It was great today because we hung with it," Casey said. "That last at-bat, I was just trying to get a single. The pitch just sort of fell into my wheelhouse, low-and-in. Sometimes you don't even feel 'em come off the bat."

But you definitely feel it going around the bases.

---

Kevin Kelly contributed to this report.

Chicago	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Grudzlanek 2b	5	1	2	0	0	0	.500
ASGonzalez ss	4	1	1	0	0	1	.480
SSosa rf	3	1	0	0	2	0	.294
Alou lf	4	0	0	0	0	0	.360
Choi 1b	2	0	1	0	1	0	.333
a-Karros ph-1b	1	0	0	0	0	0	.100
CPatterson cf	4	1	2	1	0	0	.370
LHarris 3b	4	0	1	1	0	0	.375
DMiller c	4	0	2	0	0	0	.222
Wood p	2	0	1	0	0	0	.400
b-Bellhorn ph	1	0	0	0	0	0	.063
Guthrie p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Borowski p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Totals	34	4	10	2	3	1

Cincinnati	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Larkin ss	4	0	0	0	0	1	.261
ABoone 2b	4	1	1	0	0	0	.222
Dunn lf	3	1	0	0	1	1	.190
Kearns rf	4	2	2	1	0	0	.400
Casey 1b	4	1	3	3	0	0	.261
Larson 3b	3	0	1	1	0	2	.125
GWhite p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
c-RMateo ph	1	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Williamson p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Taylor cf	3	0	0	0	0	3	.286
LaRue c	3	0	0	0	0	1	.158
PWilson p	2	0	0	0	0	1	.000
Flopez 3b	1	0	1	0	0	0	.111
Totals	32	5	8	5	1	9

Chicago	400	000	000	-4	10	0
Cincinnati	010	102	01x	-5	8	3

a-popped out for Choi in the 7th. b-flied out for Wood in the 8th. c-flied out for White in the 8th.

E-Larson 2 (2), Taylor (1). LOB-Chicago 8, Cincinnati 4. 2B-Grudzielanek (2), ASGonzalez (7), CPatterson (1), DMiller 2 (3), Casey (1), FLopez (1). 3B-ABoone (1). HR-Casey (2) off Guthrie; Kearns (3) off Wood. RBIs-CPatterson (8), LHarris (3), Kearns (6), Casey 3 (5), Larson (3). S-ASGonzalez, Wood. GIDP-ASGonzalez, SSosa, DMiller.

Runners left in scoring position-Chicago 7 (ASGonzalez, Karros, CPatterson, LHarris 2, DMiller, Bellhorn); Cincinnati 3 (ABoone, Larson, Taylor).

Runners moved up-Larkin.

DP-Cincinnati 3 (Larson, ABoone and Casey), (Larson, ABoone and Casey), (Larkin, ABoone and Casey).

Chicago	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Wood	7	7	4	4	1	8	111	4.50
Guthrie L, 0-1	2/3	1	1	1	0	1	14	2.70
Borowski	1/3	0	0	0	0	0	2	0.00

Cincinnati	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
PWilson	6 2/3	8	4	1	3	0	87	1.35
GWhite W, 1-0	1 1/3	1	0	0	0	0	7	2.25
Williamson S, 1	1	1	0	0	0	1	10	0.00

Inherited runners-scored-GWhite 2-0.

T-2:22. A-24,023 (42,263).