National League Roundup : At Pittsburgh This Time, Tanner Is on Winning Side

Chuck Tanner didn’t need anyone to point out that he was back in Pittsburgh Monday. He could tell just by watching his former team perform on the field.

The Pirates, by way of welcoming back their former manager, made six errors, three of them by shortstop Sammy Khalifa, to help Tanner’s new club, the Atlanta Braves, romp to a 9-4 victory. It was the fifth loss in a row for the Pirates, who didn’t seem to benefit at all from new Manager Jim Leyland’s Sunday tirade.

The Braves have won 10 of their last 13 games, but Tanner wasn’t in a mood to gloat.

“If you’re on the losing end,” he said, “this is the kind of game you throw in the basket and forget about. It’s all part of the growing up process for a young team.”

The Pirates led, 4-0, after five innings and still led, 4-3, going into the eighth. In that inning, Khalifa had two errors and pitcher Bob Walk another as the Braves scored five unearned runs.

Chicago 9, Cincinnati 6--Dennis Eckersley isn’t pitching so well this season, but he is helping his cause with the bat.

In this game at Chicago, Eckersley gave up five runs in seven innings, but he hit a two-run home run to climax a four-run third inning that enabled the Cubs to take charge.

Earlier in the season, Eckersley won a game with a home run but didn’t last long enough to become the winning pitcher.

The Cubs jumped all over Scott Terry, the last-minute sub for Mario Soto, who warmed up but couldn’t get loose Monday.

Houston 4, St. Louis 1--Rookie left-hander Jim Deshaies gave up three hits and struck out 10 in seven innings at St. Louis to gain his first major league victory.

Terry Puhl had three hits as the Astros retained first place in the West before 20,099, smallest Cardinal crowd of the season.

The Cardinals, who had the best record in the majors last season, are 16-24 this season.

San Diego 9, Montreal 6--Graig Nettles hit a home run in his fourth consecutive game and Kevin McReynolds drove in three runs at Montreal.

Although he gave up nine hits, including home runs by Tim Raines and Andre Dawson, Dave Dravecky (5-3) pitched his first complete game of the season.

There were 10 runs scored in the first two innings, five by each team.