Cincinnatti (Ohio)----Last night the Marlins seemingly had every chance in the world to win the game but their failure to come up with a clutch hit did them in. The Cincinnatti Reds, who are in the thick of a pennant race, wiggled their way out of every Marlin rally and came up with the 4-2 victory. Cincinnatti got the ball rolling quickly when shortstop Barry Larkin hit a leadoff homerun, his tenth, off Marlin pitcher Dennis Springer. A couple of innings later Reds catcher Eddie Taubansee belted his 18th homerun of the year deep into the Cincinnatti night. In th fifth the Reds scored another run when Taubansee forced a walk with the bases loaded. Reds pitcher Denny Neagle only allowed two runs while pitching seven innings and had several Marlins waving at his spectacular changeup all game long. After Preston Wilson made the game 4-2 with his 22nd homerun of the season the Marlins embarked on a downward spiral which saw them strand four baserunners in two innings. University of Miami product and Reds closer Danny Graves was able to get out of a bases loaded one out jam by striking out Wilson and getting Mike Lowell to ground out weakly to shortstop. In the ninth the fish had yet another chance when with one on Alex Gonzalez hit an absolute screamer up the middle which was snagged out of mid air by Graves for the third out. The hit would have brought up Marlin slugger Cliff Floyd as the go ahead run but that scenario never played out. Tonight the Marlins will seek redemption against these same Reds and hopefully they'll do what all good teams do, get the big hit when it counts.

GAME SUMMARY

(WP) Denny Neagle (6-5)

(LP) Dennis Springer (5-14)

(S) Danny Graves (22)

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Today in Sports by Santiago Fernandez