Cubs Decide to Go Long and Beat Rockies

Henry Rodriguez offered some advice to his Chicago Cubs teammates before Friday’s game at Wrigley Field: Keep the ball out of the air.

“I told them to hit it on the ground or try for a line drive because it was going to be really hard to hit a home run,” Rodriguez said.

Boy, was he wrong.

“Sammy [Sosa] hit one and then I said, ‘What’s going on here?’ The wind’s blowing in and we get four homers,” Rodriguez said.

Sosa hit his 42nd homer and Rodriguez hit his 26th and 27th as the Cubs helped rookie Kerry Wood get his 11th victory, defeating the Colorado Rockies, 9-1. Manny Alexander also homered for the Cubs with the wind blowing in at 12 mph.

Wood (11-5), meanwhile, improved his record at Wrigley Field to 8-0 in 10 starts, even though he had nearly as many walks (four) as strikeouts (six) in 7 1/3 innings.

Sosa homered in the first inning, a drive to right-center that just cleared the wall. Sosa is second in the majors in homers, three behind Mark McGwire.

Cincinnati 3, Florida 2--Dmitri Young’s seventh-inning double drove in the go-ahead runs at Miami as the Reds handed the Marlins their 12th loss in 14 games.

Brett Tomko (10-7), who held the Marlins without a hit until the fifth inning, gave up two runs and five hits in seven innings, striking out four and walking three.

The loss was the Marlins’ 71st, one more than their total last season when they won the World Series.

Houston 7, Pittsburgh 4--Carl Everett doubled in two runs with his third hit of the game at Pittsburgh and the Astros finally defeated Francisco Cordova.

Mike Hampton (9-5) pitched effectively before tiring, giving up three runs and six hits over 6 2/3 innings for his third consecutive victory over the Pirates. He has a 1.11 earned-run average against them over the last two seasons.

Cordova (9-9) had been even more dominant against the Astros, limiting them to four hits and two runs over 24 innings in three 1997 starts, including nine no-hit innings on July 12.

But Cordova struggled with his control in his first start against the Astros this season, walking five, hitting a batter and giving up five runs in 6 2/3 innings.

St. Louis 3, Atlanta 2--Ray Lankford took care of the heroics for the Cardinals, hitting a three-run homer off Greg Maddux in the sixth inning, leading the Cardinals at Atlanta.

Mark McGwire, on the one-year anniversary of the trade that sent him from Oakland to the St. Louis, was hitless in three at-bats.

In 153 games with the Cardinals, he has 69 homers, 142 RBIs and a .280 average.

Maddux (14-5) was working on a two-hit shutout in his bid to become the league’s first 15-game winner when he gave up his first homer in 84 innings.

Kent Mercker (7-8) gave up six hits in eight-plus innings.

Arizona 8, Milwaukee 2--Devon White and Jay Bell hit home runs and Andy Benes gave up six hits in 7 2/3 innings as the Diamondbacks won at Phoenix.

The Diamondbacks hit for the cycle in the sixth inning to break a 2-2 tie.

Andy Fox, who had three hits, singled and Bell followed with his 14th home run. Karim Garcia doubled with two outs and scored on Danny Klassen’s triple.

San Francisco 7, Philadelphia 6--Bill Mueller hit a tiebreaking double with two outs in the ninth inning and the Giants came from behind at Philadelphia.

The Giants, who led, 4-0, but later fell behind, 6-5, rallied for their 32nd comeback victory of the season.

The Giants got to Phillie starter Curt Schilling for four runs in the first inning. Jeff Kent’s homer capped the scoring.

Schilling struck out five in six innings, raising his major league-leading total to 214.