By Joe Kay
The Associated Press

PHOTO GALLERY

Photos of Tuesday's game

Dave Roberts steadied himself in front of the outfield wall, reached for the ball and felt it smack off the heel of his glove.

It was a terrible feeling, one he'd never had before in the majors. It took him all of two innings to get over it.

Roberts singled, stole second and scored the tiebreaking run in the eighth inning Tuesday night, leading the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 2-1 victory over the Cincinnati Reds. The rally turned Roberts' first error in 222 major league games into a footnote.

"When he made the error out there, I told him, 'You're going to get a big hit,"' said left fielder Brian Jordan, who drove him in with a single off Paul Wilson (0-2).

Given the way the Dodgers have fared in close games, Jordan's prediction sounded like nothing more than a pep talk. Los Angeles lost four consecutive one-run games from April 10-13, repeatedly coming up just short on late rallies.

The Dodgers finally got it right in a ballpark where the rallies never seem to end.

Kazuhisu Ishii gave up five hits in six innings, including Aaron Boone's run-scoring single in the first. Ishii walked two batters to set it up, then settled down after Boone's hit.

"It was very apparent in the first inning that he was out of sync," manager Jim Tracy said. "A year ago, he never would have gotten into sync. Now he's showed us the ability to sort through some things and get himself squared away."

Ishii saved Roberts a lot of grief in the sixth, when the center fielder dropped Adam Dunn's fly to the wall with one out. Dunn wasn't running hard - he figured it would either be a home run or a fly out - and wound up only on second base.

Ishii pitched out of it, and Jordan urged Roberts to use it as inspiration.

"He said, 'It happened, go up there and win the game for us with a hit,"' Roberts said.

It didn't happen exactly that way.

Cesar Izturis tied it with a two-out single in the seventh, and Roberts extended his hitting streak to nine games with a leadoff single in the eighth. He stole second and came around on Jordan's two-out single, which bounced past charging right fielder Ruben Mateo.

"Wilson makes one mistake, the pitch to Jordan," Reds manager Bob Boone said. "If Mateo picks up that ball, he throws him out. He had him."

That's the way things are going for the Reds in their new place. For the first time in 10 games and two exhibitions, neither team hit a homer. It didn't matter.

The Reds fell to 6-14 - their worst start since 1997 - by wasting one of their best pitching performances of the season. Wilson gave up seven hits in 7 2-3 innings and threw 75 strikes in 108 pitches, but lost anyway.

"It doesn't make me sleep any better," Wilson said. "I had the lead, but I let it go. It was my game to win, and I didn't win it."