Vaughn Helps Padres Find Missing Offense

Greg Vaughn hit his 45th homer and Wally Joyner and George Arias also connected as the Padres rediscovered their offense and defeated Montreal, 5-2, Monday night at San Diego, reducing the Padres’ magic number for clinching the NL West title to 10.

The Padres had lost two in a row to the lowly Expos, who are 33 games below .500, and split the four-game series.

San Diego (89-49) pulled within one game of Atlanta (90-48) for the best record in the NL.

Vaughn extended his club single-season record and career-high when he lined a pitch from Carl Pavano (4-7) over the left-field fence leading off the second to tie the score at 1. Vaughn has homered five times in his last nine games.

Joyner, who missed the last four starts with a strained leg muscle, hit his 11th homer with two out in the fifth, also off Pavano. Arias, recalled from triple-A Las Vegas on Aug. 23, had a pinch-hit homer, his first as a Padre, off Anthony Telford with two out in the sixth to make the score, 5-2.

Joey Hamilton (12-11) won his second consecutive start, giving up two runs and five hits in six innings. He struck out five and walked three.

Trevor Hoffman pitched a perfect ninth for his 44th save. He tied the club record for saves in a season set by Mark Davis in 1989.

Houston 4, Atlanta 3--The Astros scored three runs in the ninth on six singles and rallied to defeat John Smoltz and the Braves at Atlanta.

Houston, held to only two hits in the first eight innings by Smoltz (13-3), got five consecutive singles to start the ninth.

Trailing, 3-1, Craig Biggio, Bill Spiers and Derek Bell singled to load the bases and chase Smoltz, who had won eight decisions in a row and hadn’t lost since June 26--a span of 12 starts.

Kerry Ligtenberg, who converted 18 consecutive save opportunities before blowing one Friday night, replaced Smoltz and gave up RBI singles to Jeff Bagwell and Moises Alou.

After Carl Everett lined to center and Ricky Gutierrez struck out, Brad Ausmus lined a two-out single to right to score Bell.

Jay Powell (5-5) got the win despite giving up a solo homer to Chipper Jones in the eighth.

San Francisco 6, Philadelphia 2--The Giants scored the go-ahead run on a throwing error by first baseman Rico Brogna at San Francisco.

Jeff Kent, who also hit his 25th homer, added an RBI single in the eighth as the Giants earned a split of the four-game series and stayed within two games in the wild-card race.

Ellis Burks hit a sacrifice fly and Joe Carter added an RBI double to make the score 6-2.

After the Phillies tied the score, 2-2, in the top of the eighth, Marvin Benard walked against Wayne Gomes (9-5) to lead off the Giants’ half and went to second on a passed ball.

Bill Mueller hit a grounder to Brogna, who threw wildly trying to get Benard at third.

Orel Hershiser walked one and struck out a season-high eight, his most in a game since striking out eight on Sept. 14, 1995 against Boston while pitching for Cleveland.

He is only 1-2 with six no-decisions in his last nine starts.