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CINCINNATI — Patriotism has its virtues, especially for the Cincinnati Reds when they wore their red shirts and special blue hats Saturday (red, white & blue) against the Washington Nationals.

Bronson Arroyo and Ken Griffey Jr. ganged up on the Nats for a 3-0 victory in front of 22,626 in Great American Ball Park, a crowd that sat through an hour and 47 minutes worth of rain before festivities began.

And, of course, teams can beat the woebegone Nats while wearing pink shirts with maroon polka dots and party hats while carrying umbrellas — a team that is 34-54 and solidly entrenched in the National League East basement.

Beating teams with under .500 records, though, has been mission ugly for the Reds — 13-23 before Friday, so consider this second-straight victory over the Nationals a small step for Reds mankind.

Arroyo, who hates pitching day games because he keeps late hours and sleeps in, has pitched two straight day games and given up one run in 12 innings — no runs and five hits over six innings Saturday.

"And my next game is a day game, too (Thursday in Chicago)," said Arroyo. "But this may have been the best I've ever felt for a day game. They gave me a little lead in the first and if you put zeros up in the first two or three innings and don't throw a lot of pitches, it can accumulate for you and keep you rolling."

Those two first-inning runs were provided by Jay Bruce (double) and Griffey's 604th home run, that pushed him to 5,001 total career bases, 18th on the all-time list.

"I had no idea about the total bases until they told me," said Griffey. "I don't look at those things. I just keep trudging along."

There was humor that could have been disaster with two outs in the ninth and two Nats on base against Francisco Cordero. With two strikes, Cristian Guzman foul-tipped a ball. The person who pushes the button for the post-game fireworks when the Reds win thought it was strike three and fingered the plunger.

While five or six explosives went off over the stadium, Guzman stood patiently outside the batter's box. How embarrassing would it have been if Guzman then hit a game-tying home run?

Instead, Cordero slipped a game-ending strike three past Guzman.

"When the fireworks went off, I thought, 'Oh, no, I hope that isn't a bad omen,'" said manager Dusty Baker. "It's a good thing that guy wasn't defending our country."

Of the game, Baker said, "Bronson was great. He threw the ball excellently. Junior getting the home run in the first inning was huge. Getting on the board in the first inning is huge. Arroyo can relax and it relieves a lot of pressure."

Arroyo helped produce the third run himself, ripping one to left field in the fourth that eluded Elijah Dukes. Paul Bako scored from first and Arroyo went in to third with a head-first slide.

"That slide was terrible," Griffey said. "Pete Rose would have been upset. There was absolutely no hang time."

Said Arroyo: "He's right. But I wasn't about to knock the wind out of myself with a belly slam.

"That's the only was I know how to go," he said. "If I slide feet first, I probably hurt something. Playing high school ball, I jammed my wrist so many times sliding feet first and end up hurting your hands because you put them down there. You do that and you end up not pitching for a while."

Arroyo wasn't ready to leave after six innings, but Baker saw the pitches and saw his mad dash for third base and thought that was enough.

"Today was the first time he pulled me without me feeling like it was time," Arroyo said. "He feels right now that I haven't proven to him that I can throw more than 100 pitches and be super effective. On top of that, hitting the triple, he thought that took a little out of me."

Actually, it wasn't a triple, Bronson. It was ruled an error and Baker said, "I thought that was hit. In that area, that ball usually gets in the lights and I'm sure that ball got in the lights. My opinion — a hit and an RBI.

But the victory was what tasted so good and Baker said, "Boy, happy Fourth of July. That barbecue will taste much better now."