McGwire Only Three Homers From 500

Mark McGwire moved within three of 500 home runs Sunday. He just isn’t ready to talk about that milestone yet.

McGwire hit his 40th homer to tie Sammy Sosa for the major league lead in the Cardinals’ 5-4 loss to the Colorado Rockies at St. Louis .

McGwire who hit a three-run homer and an RBI double took no satisfaction in closing in on 500 since the team did not win.

“You guys always ask me about numbers and I keep saying winning is what I care about,” he said.

With the Cardinals trailing, 5-1, in the fifth, McGwire homered off Brian Bohanon with two men on to cut the lead to 5-4. McGwire has 13 homers in his last 17 games.

“All I can do is keep coming at him, that’s the way I pitch,” Bohanon said.

McGwire has 13 home runs in his last 17 games but didn’t want to discuss any technical aspects of his hot streak.

“I’m not going to tell you guys, I keep some things to myself,” he said.

Manager Jim Leyland praised his bullpen for holding the Cardinals scoreless for the last four innings.

The Cardinals had runners on first and third in the seventh, when Jerry Dipoto got McGwire to hit into a double play to end the inning.

“The pitch that Dipoto made McGwire hit into a double play on was perfect,” Leyland said. “There was nothing he could do with it.”

New York 5, Chicago 4--Pitcher Pat Mahomes finally made sure that Al Leiter’s brilliant performance wasn’t wasted, and he used his bat to do it.

Mahomes singled in the winning run in the 13th inning and protected the last of three late leads for the Mets at Chicago.

Leiter struck out a career-high 15 in seven innings. He gave up two runs and seven hits but the Mets blew one-run leads in the ninth and 10th due to poor pitching by Armando Benitez.

Cincinnati 9, San Francisco 1--Dmitri Young drove in three runs as the Reds took advantage of eight walks at Cincinnati.

Russ Ortiz (12-7) had control problems for a fourth consecutive start. He walked four and gave up five runs in 2 2/3 innings, the second time in a row that he’s failed to last three innings.

Given the big early lead, Brett Tomko (4-5) went the distance for the first time in 20 starts. The right-hander got his first victory since June 25.

Atlanta 12, Philadelphia 4--Chipper Jones homered twice and Gerald Williams hit a grand slam at Atlanta.

Greg Maddux (12-6) gave up four runs, four hits and one walk in the first inning before settling down to give up only two hits in his final six innings. Maddux threw 27 pitches in the first inning, only 59 over the next six.

Montreal 10, Milwaukee 4--Rondell White hit a three-run homer during Montreal’s nine-run fourth inning at Milwaukee.

All nine Montreal runs in the fourth were unearned as Milwaukee put on a comical display of poor fielding. The Brewers, who made five errors in the game, made three in the fourth inning.

Pittsburgh 2, Florida 1--Francisco Cordova continued his strong second-half pitching, limiting Florida to one run and five hits at Pittsburgh in his second complete game of the season.