Sosa Causes Fans to Trash Wrigley Field

Rod Beck thinks Chicago Cub fans should find another way to celebrate Sammy Sosa’s home runs besides throwing garbage.

Sosa hit a three-run homer, his 37th, with two out in the eighth inning at Wrigley Field on Wednesday night to give the Cubs their fourth consecutive win, 9-5 over the slumping Montreal Expos.

Some fans in the sellout crowd of 39,179 tossed cups and trash on the field after Sosa’s homer and again after Henry Rodriguez followed with his 24th homer.

“They must have been starving for baseball--we’ve been gone 13 days,” said Beck, the Cubs’ closer. “It’s nice to see them excited, but there’s a time and place for that and it’s across the street in the bars.”

Five fans ran onto the field at different times during the game, each time briefly halting play.

“They were throwing everything--they were even throwing themselves,” Rodriguez said.

The Cubs broke a 3-3 tie by scoring six runs in the eighth, highlighted by Sosa’s first homer since July 17.

Vladimir Guerrero and Chris Widger homered for Montreal, which dropped its sixth in a row.

Sosa is three home runs shy of his career high of 40 set in 1996.

“I don’t want to start thinking about home runs,” Sosa said. “Every time I do that, I get out of control. I want to do things my way. The home runs will come. If I go out and make contact, things will happen.”

In addition to their back-to-back homers, Sosa and Rodriguez had consecutive RBI singles in the fifth. Rodriguez now has driven in 25 runs in his last 25 games.

New York 7-6, Milwaukee 5-1--Edgardo Alfonzo, the hero of the first game, and Todd Pratt each drove in two runs and Hideo Nomo won his second decision in a row as the Mets swept a doubleheader at Milwaukee.

Nomo (4-8), who had given up a total of five hits in his previous two games, gave up five hits and one run in seven innings against the Brewers. He also struck out nine and had two singles.

In the first game, Alfonzo’s two-run double capped a three-run ninth inning as the Mets rallied to win. Dennis Cook (5-3) got the victory in relief.

Atlanta 14, Philadelphia 2--Andres Galarraga homered twice and Tom Glavine struck out 10 at Philadelphia.

Galarraga has 32 homers and seven two-homer games this year. The Braves, shut out by Kerry Wood and the Cubs on Tuesday, recovered to pound out 16 hits.

Glavine (14-4) gave up four hits and two runs in seven innings. He surrendered a single to Scott Rolen and a homer to Rico Brogna in the fourth, but otherwise handcuffed the Phillies.

Atlanta’s Andruw Jones, pulled by Manager Bobby Cox during Tuesday night’s game after not hustling after a fly ball, returned to the lineup and made a fine running catch in the fourth inning.

St. Louis 3, San Francisco 2--Bobby Witt pitched five solid innings for his first NL victory since 1995 and Gary Gaetti hit a two-run homer as the Cardinals defeated the slumping Giants at San Francisco.

Mark McGwire, who leads the majors with 43 homers, was hitless in four at-bats. He grounded into a double play in the first, struck out looking in the third, flied to right in the sixth and popped to third in the eighth.

Witt gave up two runs and four hits, walked three and struck out four. He was making his first start for the Cardinals since being acquired in a June 22 trade with Texas.

Pittsburgh 6, Florida 4--Todd Van Poppel pitched 6 1/3 innings to win his NL debut, and Tony Womack went three for three at Pittsburgh.

Kevin Young had a pair of run-scoring singles for the Pirates, who have won five of six to get out of last place in the NL Central. All of their runs came against rookie Ryan Dempster (1-5). The Pirates won consecutive home games for the first time since June 5-6.

Cincinnati at Colorado--The Reds and Rockies were postponed by rain at Denver and will make up the game as part of a day-night doubleheader today.