ROUNDUP : With Starters Gone After Nine and 10, Braves Win It in 13

Kevin Millwood and Darren Oliver both threw one of their best games Saturday at St. Louis. But instead of a victory, both came away with respect for the other.

“He pitched a better game than I did,” Oliver said after the Atlanta Braves defeated the Cardinals, 3-0, in 13 innings. “We were both in a groove but he had the best stuff.”

“I could tell it was going to be a low-scoring game,” Millwood said after becoming the first Atlanta pitcher to throw 10 innings in six years. He gave up only two singles.

Oliver pitched nine shutout innings himself before leaving for a pinch-hitter.

The Braves have won a season-high nine in a row. The Cardinals have lost five in a row and fell four games below .500 for the first time this season.

The victory was also the 1,500th for Manager Bobby Cox.

The Cardinals made four errors, two of them in the 13th inning. Eddie Perez opened with a double off Lance Painter (3-5) and Walt Weiss sacrificed.

Ricky Bottalico relieved and Gerald Williams hit a run-scoring single for a 1-0 lead. Williams stole second and continued to third when second baseman Adam Kennedy missed the throw for an error.

Chipper Jones grounded to first, and Mark McGwire threw the ball over Bottalico’s head for his second error of the game, allowing Williams to score. After a balk and a walk, Jose Hernandez hit a run-scoring single.

Arizona 5, New York 3--Jay Bell, whose error opened the way for two unearned runs in the sixth inning, went three for four with two runs batted in as the Diamondbacks rallied to defeat the Mets at Phoenix.

Bell’s two-out double into the left-field corner scored Tony Womack from first for the go-ahead run in the seventh. Matt Williams added his 31st home run in the eighth.

Arizona has won 11 of its last 13 and stayed 8 1/2 games ahead of second-place San Francisco in the NL West.

Florida 5, Houston 2--Mike Lowell’s single drove in two of the Marlins’ three unearned runs in the first inning at Houston as they defeated the Astros, who remained half a game ahead of Cincinnati in the NL Central.

A.J. Burnett (2-0) won his second major league start, giving up two runs on four hits in five innings.

Armando Almanza relieved with the bases loaded and none out in the seventh and escaped the jam. He struck out pinch-hitter Russ Johnson before getting Ken Caminiti on a pop fly and Matt Mieske on a fly to left to preserve a 4-2 lead.

Montreal 8, Cincinnati 6--Vladimir Guerrero, whose 31-game hitting streak was stopped Friday, hit his 33rd home run with two out in the ninth to give the Expos a victory at home over the Reds.

With Manny Martinez on first, Guerrero hit a 445-shot off Scott Williamson (11-6).

Colorado 11-4, Philadelphia 6-0--Brian Bohanon pitched a four-hitter for his first career shutout and Larry Walker went four for four to raise his major league-leading batting average to .363 in the second game of a doubleheader as the Rockies swept the Phillies at Denver.

The second game took only two hours and seven minutes, the shortest in the five-season history of Coors Field.

The Rockies won the opener as Neifi Perez and Todd Helton each had three hits and two RBIs.

San Francisco 6, Pittsburgh 2--Spot starter Mark Gardner gave up only two hits in seven scoreless innings for his first victory since July 3, leading the Giants past the Pirates at San Francisco.

Gardner had gone 0-3 with a 7.88 earned-run average in his last five starts.