NATIONAL LEAGUE ROUNDUP : Martinez’s Changeup Crosses Up Cardinals

Pedro Martinez discovered his changeup is almost as good as his fastball.

“I think a lot of the Cardinals were looking for the fastball and they couldn’t handle the changeup very well,” Martinez said Tuesday after his four-hitter led the Montreal Expos to a 5-0 victory over the Cardinals at St. Louis.

Martinez (6-4) had been 1-3 since pitching nine perfect innings against the San Diego Padres on June 3.

“I wasn’t getting many runs in those other games, but today, I had a good lead to work with,” he said. “That took a lot of pressure off me.”

He struck out seven and walked one in his second career shutout, lowering his ERA from 3.22 to 2.90.

“My fastball is in the 90s and when I have good changeup, either pitch is my out pitch,” Martinez said. “By the end of the game, I was able to use either one and that makes them both good.”

Jose Oquendo said Martinez reminded him of Atlanta’s Greg Maddox, who has won three consecutive NL Cy Young Awards.

“He has a great changeup, you can see why the league is only hitting .213 off him,” said Cardinal Manager Mike Jorgensen.

Houston 16, Colorado 8--Jeff Bagwell homered and drove in five runs and Craig Biggio had two homers, three runs batted in and a club-record five runs at Denver.

The Astros, who have scored 96 runs in their last nine games, pounded out 17 hits in support of Mike Hampton (3-3).

Cincinnati 10, San Francisco 6--Damon Berryhill’s pinch-hit three-run homer in the seventh inning undercut a San Francisco comeback in Cincinnati.

The Giants committed three errors to spoil Terry Mulholland’s return from elbow surgery and hand Cincinnati three early runs. Mulholland left, trailing, 7-3, in the fifth.

San Francisco cut it to 7-6 in the seventh as Mark Carreon drove in a run with his third single of the game. The comeback ended when Jose Bautista gave up Berryhill’s two-out homer, his second of the season, in the bottom of the inning.

Chicago 3, New York 0--Kevin Foster pitched eight shutout innings, tying his career-high with nine strikeouts and scattering six hits in New York.

Brian McRae scored all three runs for the Cubs, who tied their longest winning streak of the season with their fourth consecutive victory. McRae homered on the second pitch of the game, his sixth of the year, and added a triple and a double.

He scored Chicago’s second run in the third when his triple was followed by a wild pitch, then got the final run for the Cubs in the eighth when his double was followed by a sacrifice and a groundout by Sammy Sosa.

Florida 6, San Diego 4--Terry Pendleton drove in three runs to lead the Marlins to victory over the Padres at Miami, securing their first series victory at home in nearly a year.

The Marlins have won three road series this year, but had not won a home series since taking three of four from Colorado last July 7-10.

Pendleton, who drove in all the runs Monday in the Marlins’ 5-2 victory, broke a 1-1 tie in the sixth when he pulled a fastball from Andy Ashby (5-5) over the right-field wall, scoring Jeff Conine, who had singled.

Pittsburgh 7, Philadelphia 0--John Ericks pitched seven shutout innings at Pittsburgh for his first major league victory and the Pirates extended the Phillies’ losing streak to four.

Ericks, making only his third start, gave up four hits--only one after the second inning--as the Phillies lost for the seventh time in eight games. The Phillies are averaging only two runs per game over that span and have been shut out in 61 of their last 65 innings.

The Pirates, who had lost 17 of their first 25 at home, had 15 hits, but none of them produced a run until Jacob Brumfield’s pinch-single in the seventh made it 5-0. Pittsburgh’s first four runs off Paul Quantrill (7-4) came on two sacrifice flies by Dave Clark and a pair of run-scoring grounders by Jeff King.