By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Maybe the Reds just wanted to give the sellout crowd a little bit of excitement.

They did. After blowing a two-run lead with two outs in the ninth, the Reds beat the Montreal Expos 6-3 on Adam Dunn's towering three-run homer in the 10th.

"We had it all the way," Dunn said.

Not quite, but the crowd of 40,545 loved the ending.

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Just as they hated it when Danny Graves gave up back-to-back home runs in the ninth for his fifth blown save of the year. But Dunn's big swing turned what looked like a painful loss into a sweet victory.

"It's like I didn't even pitch," Graves said, "especially to win it on a walk-off like that."

Sean Casey nearly won it earlier in the 10th. He doubled high off the wall in right with two outs. The Expos then intentionally walked Ken Griffey Jr. to get to Dunn.

"That makes you focus more," Dunn said. "Any manager in the game would have done it."

Dunn, who has one single since May 22, was thinking contact.

"They had (second baseman Jose) Vidro playing in the hole," Dunn said. "The middle was open. That's what I was trying to do on the first pitch. But I swung and missed. Go figure."

Dunn took a ball, then hit his second home run of the night and 17th of the year.

"I knew it was gone," Dunn said. "I just didn't know how far."

Graves gave up back-to-back, two-out home runs to Tony Batista and Nick Johnson to allow the Expos to tie it 3-3. Graves, an out away from his 27th save, had converted 16 of his last 17 save chances and nine straight coming in.

But there was no panic in the Reds' dugout.

"When we go into extra innings, it feels like we're going to win it," Dunn said. "It's not if, it's what inning."

Reds Fever is upon us. The sellout was the third of the year and the walkup crowd was 13,596. That broke Friday's walkup record of 10,755, which was largest since the Reds began keeping track of walkups in 1987.

"That's huge," Miley said. "The players know they're there. It gets them going."

The Reds put on a good show, even with the surprise ending.

Paul Wilson pitched six innings of one-hit, one-run ball in his return to the rotation. The blown save kept him from joining Roger Clemens as the only 8-0 pitchers in the big leagues.

Griffey and Dunn gave the Reds an early lead with back-to-back home runs to start the fourth.

The Griffey countdown to career home run No. 500 is at 496.

"We're charming them with Griffey," said Todd Jones, who got the win by pitching a perfect 10th. "And we're hooking them with the way we play."

Wilson, back after missing a start with a slightly strained right groin, retired the first nine batters he faced and did not allow a hit until the fifth. The injury is why the Reds limited him to six innings and 89 pitches.

"We got what we wanted from him," Miley said. "With his pitch count, he probably wasn't going to get through the seventh.

Wilson is 9-0 with a 3.14 ERA in his last 15 starts. His last loss was Aug. 12 of last year - 2-0 to Arizona.

Griffey led off the fourth with a line drive home run to right-center. A pitch later, Dunn took a Tomo Ohka pitch out to almost the same spot. Griffey's went 390 feet; Dunn's 395.

It was Griffey's 15th of the year, Dunn's 16th and the Reds' second set of back-to-back homers of the year. Barry Larkin and Casey went back-to-back on Monday.

Brandon Larson followed the homers with a single and Wily Mo Pena walked. Jason LaRue nearly made it 6-0 with a long out to right. But Wilson helped himself with a bloop single that scored Larson to make it 3-0.

"We got big hits when we needed them," Miley said.

Wilson walked Johnson with one out. He got Orlando Cabrera to pop out but Terrmel Sledge followed with a sinking line drive to right. Pena tried to pick it off just above the turf but it got by him for a double. Johnson scored to make it 3-1.

John Riedling replaced Wilson. Riedling gave up leadoff hits in both the seventh and eighth innings, but escaped each time thanks to double-play balls.

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E-mail jfay@enquirer.com

Montreal	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
Wilkerson lf	2	0	0	0	2	0	.233
EnChavez cf	3	0	0	0	0	1	.267
Vidro 2b	4	0	0	0	0	0	.234
TBatista 3b	4	1	1	1	0	1	.250
NJohnson 1b	3	2	2	1	1	1	.429
OCabrera ss	4	0	0	0	0	1	.227
Sledge rf	4	0	1	1	0	0	.252
Schneider c	3	0	1	0	1	1	.252
Ohka p	2	0	0	0	0	1	.095
Cepicky ph	1	0	0	0	0	0	.204
Bentz p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Tucker p	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
CCordero p	1	0	0	0	0	1	.000
Totals	31	3	5	3	4	7

Cincinnati	AB	R	H	BI	BB	SO	Avg.
DJimenez 2b	4	0	1	0	1	1	.241
FLopez ss	5	0	0	0	0	1	.067
Casey 1b	5	1	2	0	0	0	.384
Griffey Jr. cf	4	2	1	1	1	2	.242
Dunn lf	4	2	3	4	1	1	.260
Larson 3b	4	1	2	0	0	1	.279
WPena rf	2	0	0	0	1	0	.269
Riedling p	0	0	0	0	0	0	.000
Graves p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
Larkin ph	1	0	0	0	0	1	.287
TJones p	0	0	0	0	0	0	---
LaRue c	4	0	0	0	0	1	.206
PWilson p	2	0	1	1	0	1	.174
Freel rf	2	0	0	0	0	0	.238
Totals	37	6	10	6	4	9

Montreal	000	010	002	0	-3	5	1
Cincinnati	000	300	000	3	-6	10	0

Two outs when winning run scored.

E-TBatista (5). LOB-Montreal 3, Cincinnati 6. 2B-Sledge (4), Casey (20). HR-NJohnson (1), off Graves; TBatista (5), off Graves; Dunn 2 (17), off CCordero, Ohka; Griffey Jr. (15), off Ohka. RBIs-TBatista (18), NJohnson (2), Sledge (14), Griffey Jr. (44), Dunn 4 (37), PWilson (1). CS-DJimenez (5). S-EnChavez. GIDP-Wilkerson, Vidro, OCabrera, WPena.

DP-Montreal 1 (TBatista, Vidro and NJohnson); Cincinnati 3 (Casey, FLopez and Casey), (FLopez, DJimenez and Casey), (DJimenez, FLopez and Casey).

Montreal	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
Ohka	7	8	3	3	2	4	102	3.13
Bentz	2/3	0	0	0	1	1	15	5.87
Tucker	1/3	0	0	0	0	1	5	3.27
CCordero L, 1-1	1 2/3	2	3	3	1	3	29	2.18

Cincinnati	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	NP	ERA
PWilson	6	1	1	1	4	4	89	3.18
Riedling H, 11	2	2	0	0	0	0	16	1.50
Graves BS, 5	1	2	2	2	0	1	16	3.27
TJones W, 4-1	1	0	0	0	0	2	10	4.02

Inherited runners-scored-Tucker 1-0.

IBB-off CCordero (Griffey Jr.) 1, off PWilson (Schneider) 1.

Umpires-Home, Ron Kulpa; First, Bill Miller; Second, Brian Gorman; Third, Dale Scott.

T-2:49. A-40,545 (42,271).