Finley Continues to Terrorize Giants, 8-4

Steve Finley has no explanation for his success against the San Francisco Giants. It just seems to come naturally.

Finley went three for five with a home run, three runs batted in and three runs scored as the San Diego Padres defeated the Giants, 8-4, on Thursday at San Diego.

In seven games against the Giants this season, Finley is batting .462 (12 for 26) with six homers and 12 RBIs.

“It seems like I always swing well against them,” said Finley, who had four homers in a four-game sweep of the Giants last weekend. “I can’t explain it. I just got some good pitches to hit today and took advantage of it.”

Finley has a .338 career average against the Giants, including nine homers and 33 RBIs.

“He’s killing us,” Giant outfielder Barry Bonds said. “We gave it a good run today, but they have one guy over there that’s just hot against us right now.”

Finley broke a scoreless game with a solo home run in the fourth off Mark Leiter (4-7), his career-high 17th overall. His previous best was 11 homers in 1994 for Houston.

He added a run-scoring double in the fifth and an RBI single in the sixth.

Houston 5, Atlanta 2--The Astros, behind Shane Reynolds, won their sixth in a row and sent John Smoltz to his third consecutive loss.

Smoltz (14-4) had won 14 consecutive games before his current woes. The Astros scored four times in the second at Atlanta, batting around during an inning in which they had six of their eight hits against Smoltz.

Smoltz has given up 17 earned runs in 14 1/3 innings in losing his last three starts.

Reynolds (10-5) extended his mastery of the Braves, running his career record against them to 3-0.

Philadelphia 8, Florida 5--Rookie reliever Ron Blazier pitched 2 2/3 shutout innings and Phillie starter Curt Schilling hit a three-run double at Philadelphia.

Blazier (2-0) gave up only two hits as the Phillies sent the Marlins to their fifth consecutive loss.

Philadelphia, which entered the game as the National League’s worst hitting team, followed up a 13-hit attack Wednesday night with 14 hits.

Florida starter Pat Rapp (4-11) lost for the seventh time in eight decisions. He gave up four runs on seven hits and four walks in 2 1/3 innings.

Cincinnati 2, Chicago 1--Mark Portugal won his fourth consecutive game and Jeff Shaw was strong in relief at Chicago.

Portugal gave up four hits over five-plus innings, outpitching Cub starter Jim Bullinger (3-7).

Portugal (5-5) had given up only two hits before Ryne Sandberg and Mark Grace had singles to start the sixth, prompting a pitching change from Manager Ray Knight.

Visibly disgusted as he left the mound, Portugal was replaced by Shaw, who struck out Sammy Sosa and got Luis Gonzalez to hit into a double play. Shaw gave up two hits in three innings with three strikeouts.

St. Louis 7, Pittsburgh 1--Brian Jordan homered and drove in four runs at Pittsburgh as the Cardinals won another game against a Central team.

St. Louis, in last place a month ago, is pushing division leader Houston after winning 11 of its last 12 division games. The second-place Cardinals own the best record (14-5) inside the division.

Jordan did most of the damage against Pirate rookie starter Elmer Dessens (0-2). Dessens gave up eight hits and four runs in three innings, but his earned-run average still dropped from 15.63 to 14.46.

New York 4, Montreal 0--Rookie Robert Person gave up four hits in seven innings and Todd Hundley hit a two-run homer at Montreal.

Person (2-3) struck out three and walked one. He worked around a single by F.P. Santangelo and a double by Dave Silvestri in the second inning, and gave up only two other hits.

Jeff Fassero (8-6), who was 5-0 with a 1.88 ERA in his previous six starts, lost for the first time since May 27.