Bichette’s Homer in 10th Beats Padres, 8-5

Dante Bichette hit a three-run home run with two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning Thursday night as the Colorado Rockies rallied for an 8-5 victory over the San Diego Padres at Denver.

The Rockies trailed, 5-2, before scoring three runs in the ninth off Padre closer Trevor Hoffman to send the game into extra innings.

Walt Weiss led off the 10th with a single and one out later, Eric Young was hit by Hoffman (5-3) for the second time in as many at-bats. After Ellis Burks popped out, Bichette hit his 18th home run to end San Diego’s winning streak at five.

Bichette had four hits and drove in five runs, and Bruce Ruffin (4-3) pitched two shutout innings.

Ken Caminiti became only the third player to hit a home run into the third deck at Coors Field, and Chris Gomez and John Flaherty had four hits for the Padres.

New York 8, Houston 2--Mark Clark won his fifth consecutive decision and drove in two runs, and rookie Alex Ochoa drove in two more runs as the Mets beat the Astros at New York.

Ochoa had three hits as the Mets won for the fifth time in six games and improved to 10-6 since Ochoa’s recall from the minors June 21.

Butch Huskey and Bernard Gilkey also had three hits as New York cruised behind Clark (9-6), who gave up four hits over eight innings, struck out four and walked one. Clark is 8-1 with two no-decisions in his last 11 starts, 10 of which were Mets victories.

Florida 9, Atlanta 8--Greg Colbrunn drove in three runs and Kurt Abbott hit a pinch two-run homer in the eighth inning for the Marlins, whose manager, John Boles, won in his major-league debut, the first baseball game he has managed in 10 seasons.

Boles, who replaced the fired Rene Lachemann on Monday, had previously managed in the minor leagues.

Colbrunn had three runs batted in, and Gary Sheffield, Jeff Conine and Devon White all had three hits for John Burkett, who gave up three runs and eight hits over five innings for his first win of the season in three decisions against the Braves.

Fred McGriff and Mark Whiten drove in three runs each for Atlanta, whose starter, Steve Avery (7-8), re-aggravated a muscle strain in his left side and was replaced by Jason Schmidt after 17 pitches.

Avery, who has lost four of his last five starts, gave up one run on three hits in two-thirds of an inning.

Philadelphia 3, Montreal 2--Curt Schilling won his first game in six weeks and Todd Zeile homered as the Phillies ended a club-record 14-game road losing streak with a win at Montreal.

Schilling gave up three hits over seven innings to win for the first time since May 25. Schilling, 0-3 in his previous eight starts, gave up a run-scoring triple to Cliff Floyd in the third inning and little else before leaving in the eighth.

Chicago 6, St. Louis 0--Ryne Sandberg’s three-run homer highlighted a four-run first inning and Jaime Navarro pitched a five-hitter in the Cubs’ win over the Cardinals at Chicago.

Navarro pitched his fourth complete game in 20 starts and his first shutout, striking out four and walking two.

Pittsburgh 5, Cincinnati 3--Orlando Merced and Al Martin had three hits each and Jeff King stole home at Cincinnati, as the Pirates handed the Reds their third loss in a row.

The Pirates had 12 hits, but wasted scoring chances when three runners were caught stealing by catcher Joe Oliver and Jason Kendall was thrown out at home trying to score from second base on a single.