Estes strong again for Padres

Associated Press

SAN DIEGO " Adam Dunn hit a leadoff homer off Trevor Hoffman in the ninth inning to give the Cincinnati Reds a 3-2 win over the San Diego Padres on Friday night.

Dunn hit a 3-1 pitch off major league baseball's all-time save leader into the right-field seats to snap the Reds' four-game losing streak. Dunn's 12th homer of the season was also the 250th of his career.

Hoffman (0-3), who had allowed only one run in his last nine games, has 533 career saves.

San Diego (18-32), with the worse record in the majors, has lost 13 of 19 games.

Cincinnati played without manager Dusty Baker, who was suspended for two games on Friday for his ejection from Thursday night's game for bumping umpire Eric Cooper. Bench coach Chris Speier served as acting manager.

David Weathers (2-3) faced just one batter and struck out Kevin Kouzmanoff to end the eighth inning. Francisco Cordero pitched the ninth inning for his 10th save.

The game was delayed by rain for 29 minutes in the top of the fifth inning.

The Padres tied the score 2-2 in the seventh when Khalil Greene led off with a single against Jared Burton. Scott Hairston followed with an RBI double into the left-field corner.

Cincinnati's Edinson Volquez pitched six strong innings with a career-high 12 strikeouts. The right-hander left with a 2-1 lead after outdueling Shawn Estes, a 1991 Douglas High graduate.

After striking out Gerut and Tadahito Iguchi to start the inning, Brian Giles doubled, Adrian Gonzalez was hit by a pitch and Volquez walked Kouzmanoff. Volquez escaped the jam by striking out Greene.

Estes matched Volquez through five innings. The left-hander retired the first 11 batters before Ken Griffey Jr. reached on a throwing error by first baseman Gonzalez in the fourth. Jerry Hairston Jr. got the Reds' first hit with single in the fifth.

Estes allowed two runs on three hits in six innings. He left in the seventh after a leadoff walk to Dunn, a single to Hairston and another walk to Joey Votto loaded the bases with no outs.

Bryan Corey relieved and the Reds got one run on Paul Bako's ground ball out to tie the score at 1-all. Pinch hitter Javier Valentin pinch-hit for Volquez and singled to give Cincinnati a 2-1 lead.