National League Roundup : Gooden Beats Slumping Phils, 1-0

It was a classic matchup: The brilliant old left-hander against the new kid----Steve Carlton vs. Dwight Gooden.

Carlton was a match for the New York Mets’ right-hander through seven innings Friday night at Philadelphia, but after he departed, the luckless Phillies lost their fifth in a row.

A broken-bat bloop single by Keith Hernandez with two out in the ninth inning scored Wally Backman from second to give the Mets a 1-0 victory, their eighth in nine games this season.

Gooden improved his record to 2-0 by holding the punchless Phillies to three hits in eight innings. Jesse Orosco pitched a perfect ninth for his first save.

The performance of Carlton, though, had to give the Phillies hopes for the future. In his first two outings this season, Carlton, 40, had walked 11 batters in 11 innings and lost both times.

But flashing his old form, he retired the first 12 Mets he faced, gave up only two hits in seven innings, while walking only one batter.

Manager John Felske of the Phillies said he lifted Carlton because his arm stiffened. “I’m pleased with a lot of things about Lefty,” he said. “He had a good breaking ball, good snap and good velocity. He would have stayed in, but it was my decision to bring him out.”

Gooden, 20, struck out seven and also walked only one. In his last start, he pitched a shutout. He has a string of 17 scoreless innings and 23 strikeouts in 23 innings this season. As a rookie last season, Gooden struck out 276 batters in 218 innings and won 17 games.

Atlanta 9, Houston 5--Dale Murphy continued his assault on National League pitchers at Atlanta, making Nolan Ryan the victim of his sixth home run this season.

Murphy hit a three-run home run and a run-scoring double. He now has a .486 batting average and 18 runs batted in.

Ryan, a winner in his first two starts, was clobbered for 10 hits and six runs in 4 innings. Rick Mahler went eight innings for the Braves to become the league’s first three-game winner.

Montreal 5, Chicago 3--Jim Wohlford knows his role. In a career that began in Kansas City in 1972, Wohlford has been mostly a part-time player, a fill-in outfielder and a pinch-hitter.

In his early years, Wohlford, who also played for Milwaukee and San Francisco before joining the Expos in 1983, always thought he was good enough to be a regular. Except for 1974, when he played in 143 games for the Royals, nobody else has thought he was.

At 34, the left-handed hitter from Visalia, Calif., has resigned himself to being a spot player. In the last seven years, he has not batted more than 250 times in one season. Occasionally, though, he has come through with a big hit.

Such was the case in Montreal’s home opener. He came up with two on in the sixth and hit his 20th career home run to end Rick Sutcliffe’s 16-game winning streak. Sutcliffe (2-1) had not lost a regular-season game since last June, when the Dodgers beat him shortly after he returned to the National League.

“It was all my fault I lost,” Sutcliffe said. “I was too fine, not wild. I consider it the end of a two-game winning streak. Last year was last year.”

Cincinnati 4, San Francisco 2--Eric Davis snapped a 2-2 tie with a run-scoring single in the fourth inning at Cincinnati, and the Reds went on to win their fifth in a row.

John Stuper went six innings to improve his record to 2-0. Tom Hume pitched two innings, and Ted Power picked up his second save.

The Giants, 3-6 and last in the West, are squabbling among themselves. During batting practice, outfielders Jeff Leonard and Don Gladden had to be separated.

St. Louis 5, Pittsburgh 4--Rookie Vince Coleman, called up from the minors Monday, hit a two-out triple in the eighth inning at St. Louis to drive home Ivan DeJesus with the winning run.

It was the fourth hit of the night for Coleman, brought up because of injuries to the Cardinals’ other center fielders, Willie McGee and Tito Landrum.

Joaquin Andujar, although he couldn’t hold a 3-0 lead, became the winner when Coleman came through. Neil Allen pitched the ninth to earn the save.