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CINCINNATI — Adam Dunn called it: "The start of a turn-around breakout series."

Whatever that might be.

What's better for the Cincinnati Reds is that they have won four straight, all against first-place teams, including a 4-3 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Friday night, May 16, in Great American Ball Park.

Dunn's 3-and-2 walk with the bases loaded in the eighth inning forced in the winning run — no grand slam, no wall-banging double, not even a bloop single.

Just ball four.

"We'll take 'em any way we can get 'em," manager Dusty Baker said.

Dunn took it, too, fouling off two pitches — including one at 3-and-2 — before walking against Cincinnati native Jensen Lewis.

"Those are fun situations to be put in," Dunn said. "I was trying to put the ball in play, and it so happened that I walked."

Dunn admitted he wasn't just trying to protect the plate when he fouled off a couple of pitches. He was trying to bash them to Northern Kentucky.

"Yeah, I fouled 'em," he said. "I think I should hit every pitch, but it didn't look that way. He threw some really good pitches, and I just didn't want to get myself out."

Brandon Phillips started things off with a two-run, two-out homer in the first into the second deck, and Dunn made it 3-0 in the second with a home run to right.

"It was really hard to see those first couple of innings," said Dunn. "He (starter Jeremy Sowers) threw a fastball that (catcher) Victor Martinez was throwing back to him when I swung. I just, I don't know, he really just hit my bat, to be quite honest about it. I really didn't see it very good."

Johnny Cueto started the game, and there was a Good Johnny and a Bad Johnny.

He threw a no-hitter for five innings in the glare of dusk. He had a perfect game until he walked Sowers in the third.

He was leading, 3-0, when the sixth arrived, and the sun disappeared, and Casey Blake led with a home run.

"You say, 'No big deal,' when that happens," Baker said.

But then pinch-hitter Travis Hafner homered and, one out later, Jhonny Peralta hit the Tribe's third homer of the inning, tying it at 3.

"He started centering the ball," Baker said. "He started throwing bad strikes, and they know what to do with bad strikes."

After the third homer, a walk and an error by first baseman Joey Votto put two runners on before Cueto struck out Ben Francisco and coaxed a grounder out of Ryan Garko.

"He got out of that tough jam, got us back in the dugout and gave us a chance to win," Baker said.

The bullpen of Jared Burton, Jeremy Affeldt, David Weathers and closer Francisco Cordero held the Tribe scoreless over the final three innings, and Cordero struck out the side for his eighth save.

On Wednesday against the Marlins, Cordero gave up a two-run single and a two-run game-tying home run in the ninth inning, letting a 6-0 lead slip into a 6-6 tie — a game the Reds won in the 10th on Paul Janish's walk-off single.

"I'm sure Cordero had that in mind," Baker said. "But the life of a closer is to forget yesterday or your last bad appearance. The best closers I've seen, boy, they come right back like yesterday never happened."

The Reds' winning rally started with a one-out walk by Phillips, an opposite-field bloop double by Joey Votto and a walk to Edwin Encarnacion to fill the bases. Then came the force-in walk to Dunn.

For most of the season, the Reds have had the breaks go the other way, but Votto's double in the eighth was a break in the right direction for them.

"For sure, the first month we weren't getting those kind of breaks," said Baker. "You have to have breaks. You can't always get 'em when you want 'em, but usually sooner or later you'll get 'em when you need 'em."

That was needed, as was Dunn's walk.

Of beating the first-place Florida Marlins three straight and the first-place Indians in Game 1, Baker said, "This is a tough part of our schedule. You have to respond or shrivel up and go hide. They've responded and played good, exciting baseball."

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