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Dispatch
6/28/06
6/28/06
ROYALS 9 REDS 8
Reds lose their cool, then lead, then game
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Jim Massie
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
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CINCINNATI — Eric Milton and Todd Coffey nearly tripped over one another last night in Great American Ball Park while they took the blame for the Reds’ 9-8 loss to the Kansas Royals.
Three hanging sliders helped turn an early four-run lead into the ninth loss in the past 10 games at home, which is beginning to feel a lot hotter than heaven for everyone in a Cincinnati uniform.
"Tonight we should have had a win," said Milton, who had a 5-1 lead through four innings. "I take all the credit for the loss. I feel bad for Coffey because it should have been my loss, not his. I deserved the loss."
Coffey, however, surrendered the two-run homer to pinchhitter Matt Stairs in the ninth inning that broke a 7-7 tie and made Scott Hatteberg’s homer in the bottom of the inning a moot point.
"I got the two quick outs," Coffey said. "I went after the next guy (Emil Brown) and he hit a double. It was a good pitch, I thought, down and away and he went with it.
"Then I went with a slider when (Stairs) probably was sitting on dead red. I hung it. When there’s a hanging slider, he did what he was supposed to do and hit it out of the ballpark. It’s plain and simple. I made the mistake, my fault."
The Reds lost despite batting around and scoring five runs in the third. They even got up from a 7-5 deficit by scoring two runs in the eighth, but Coffey couldn’t hold the tie just as Milton couldn’t hold the earlier lead.
Milton surrendered solo home runs on hanging sliders to John Buck in the fifth and David DeJesus in the four-run Kansas City sixth.
"It was two different ballgames," Milton said. "I was pretty good for four and (expletive) the last two. It was ugly. My concentration has been so much on not giving up the home run.
"I’m trying to be so perfect out there, that’s when I end up making mistakes. As hard as I’m trying, the more I’m hanging (the slider). It’s tough."
The Royals nicked Milton for the first of three homers in the second on a 428-foot blast by Brown.
The Reds, however, appeared to take firm control of the game in the third against Mike Wood. Milton started the rally with a one-out double. He moved to third on a Felipe Lopez groundout and scored when Adam Dunn lined a single to right.
Ken Griffey Jr. then worked Wood to a 3-and-1 count and rocketed the next pitch into the seats in right for a two-run homer and 3-1 lead.
The homer was the 550 th of Griffey’s career and his 152 nd in Cincinnati. The latter number tied him with former Reds greats Pete Rose and Joe Morgan, teammates of his father, Ken Griffey Sr., and men he knew well as a child bouncing around the Big Red Machine clubhouse.
Rich Aurilia continued the rally with a double. Hatteberg drove him in with a single and wheeled around to third base on an error by right fielder Reggie Sanders. Austin Kearns capped the outburst with an RBI single.
The Royals, the worst road team in the American League, regained the lead in the sixth and held on to drop the Reds to 17-20 at home.
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