Reds Leaky Defense Plugged by Mike Leake in 7-2 Win Over Giants

 The Cincinnati Reds got some key hits and Mike Leake overcame some shoddy defense as they beat the San Francisco Giants for the second straight day.

Seven players each had a hit for the Reds on their way to a second consecutive win for just the second time since sweeping the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-game series in Cincinnati June 13-15. Cincinnati won the series opener 4-3 in 13 innings on Friday.

The Reds are second in the National League in runs scored  to the St. Louis Cardinals but have had trouble getting key hits until tonight.

"It helped to score those first inning runs," Dusty Baker said. "We haven't been scoring a lot of runs lately."

Mike Leake, who leads the Reds in wins despite spending 13 days with Triple-A Louisville in May, earned his career-high ninth. The second-year right-hander, winner of eight games as a rookie in 2010, allowed eight hits and two runs _ one earned _ with no walks and seven strikeouts in 6 1-3 innings.

"I'm not going to stop there," Leake said of his ninth victory.

The righthander had quality starts in his last two outings but both resulted in losses as his slumping teammates scored just three runs total, including a shutout loss to Pittsburgh.

 "As a pitcher you never complain about runs," Leake said. "Our offense is coming around."

 The Giants loaded the bases with one out against Leake in the seventh, but left-hander Bill Bray came on to get Carlos Beltran to fly out harmlessly to left and Pablo Sandoval to ground out to third.

The Giants despite leading the National League West has had trouble scoring runs to support its outstanding starting pitching.

"Bray was outstanding against the middle of their order," Baker said.

Beltran flied out in the ninth and now is 1 for 14 in three games with the Giants since being traded from the Mets on Thursday. The Giants made another deal to obtain Orlando Cabrera from the Cleveland Indians.  Cabrera was with the Reds NL Central Champion from 2010.

Logan Ondrusek and Nick Masset each added a shutout inning for the Reds.

The Reds pounced on an uncharacteristically wild Madison Bumgarner for five hits and five runs while sending 11 batters to the plate in the first inning. Brandon Phillips drove in the first run with a single to left, and Jay Bruce and Chris Heisey followed with back-to-back two-run singles up the middle.

Heisey, who is seeing most of the playing time since Jonny Gomes was traded to Washington can feel the offense heating up.

 "At any point, I think our offense can take off," Heisey said. "We didn't have a lot of key hits lately but were able to sting them together tonight. As a hitter you hate to see a guy battling out there when you're not scoring runs."

Bumgarner, who hadn't walked more than one batter in any of his previous 10 starts and none in his three most recent appearances, didn't help himself with two walks in the inning. The left-hander also hit Miguel Cairo while throwing 40 pitches, 23 for strikes.

Last season the Reds handed the 21-year old, who is a cattle roping champion, his worst beating of his rookie season last year in a game in which Cincinnati squandered a huge lead.  The Reds pulled it out buy Bumgarner was take off the hook.

 The Giants got one run back on Sandoval's 446-foot home run deep into the right-center field seats leading off the second, his 11th homer of the season and second in three games, but the Reds capitalized on two Giants errors to add to two unearned runs in the fourth.

Then Reds shortstop Edgar Renteria committed two errors in the fifth to hand San Francisco a gift run.

 The veteran went to talk to Leake after his second miscue.

"You know he doesn't want to make them," Leake said. "He came in just to pick me up. When I was younger, i would have gotten angry but at some point you learn to deal with it."

"We helped them some and they helped us some.  Everybody is dragging a little bit but we have to tighten up our defense.  We have them again tomorrow during the day.  It's going to be hot.  I tell my guys just give me one more," Baker said.

Leake, who spent no time in the minor leagues until his stint in May worked cooly worked out of the jam.

"That's the sign of a good pitcher, when you can pitch yourself out of trouble," Baker said. "He has a lot of weapons.  He has the pitches to get a double play.  He's not a strikeout pitcher but can get them when he needs to."

Brandon Phillips extended his hitting streak to nine games (13 for 38, .342), the team's longest current streak.