On Formidable Staff, Millwood Shows Stuff

Kevin Millwood is part of an Atlanta pitching staff full of Cy Young winners.

This season, however, Millwood is the only all-star.

Millwood pitched a seven-hitter and Chipper Jones homered for the third consecutive game to help the Braves beat the Florida Marlins, 5-2, Thursday night at Atlanta.

While Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Tom Glavine have struggled at times this season because of injuries and ineffectiveness, Millwood has been consistently successful. Millwood (11-4), selected to his first All-Star team on Wednesday, struck out 10 and walked one to win his fifth consecutive start.

Millwood gave up no hits after the fifth inning in his fourth career complete game and first since Aug. 25 at Houston.

“I picked up the tempo a little bit,” Millwood said. “Chipper said something to me about it. I was dragging along, and when a guy like that says something to you, you’d be pretty smart to listen.”

Brian Jordan and Ryan Klesko also homered for the Braves, who have won six of their last eight.

Jones’ solo homer in the sixth inning against Brian Meadows (6-10) put the Braves ahead, 4-2. It was his 20th homer and gave him six in his last seven games. Jones also had a run-scoring double in the first inning.

“I certainly struggled the first part of the season,” Jones said. “When you hit over .500 in the spring, you know you’re going to come back down at some point.

“Unfortunately, once opening day got here, I lost it.”

Chicago 9, Pittsburgh 4--Jose Hernandez homered and drove in four runs for the Cubs at Pittsburgh.

Hernandez keyed a five-run third inning against Kris Benson (6-7) with a three-run homer, then added a run-scoring single in the fifth.

The Cubs were outscored, 217-130, while losing 20 of 26 before Dan Serafini (2-1) continued the Pirates’ struggles against left-handed starters, yielding two runs over five innings in his first National League start.

The Pirates are 9-16 against left-handers.

Serafini had not won as a starter since beating Baltimore, 5-4, for Minnesota on Aug. 9, making only one other start since then.

Montreal 4, New York 3--Shane Andrews’ pinch-hit sacrifice fly in the top of the eighth lifted the Expos to a come-from-behind victory at New York.

The Met bullpen, which had a 3.25 earned-run average in its last eight appearances, gave up two runs and failed to hold a lead for starter Masato Yoshii, who gave up two runs and four hits in six innings after being touched up for eight runs against the Braves last Friday.

Mike Piazza hit his 19th homer for the Mets.

Cincinnati 8, St. Louis 5--Greg Vaughn and Mike Cameron each homered for the Reds at St. Louis, and Pete Harnisch (9-6) won his third consecutive decision.

The Reds averted a three-game sweep by the Cardinals, who were trying to get over the .500 mark for the first time since June 8.

Vaughn hit his 19th homer in the first against Kent Mercker (2-5) after Sean Casey was hit by a pitch. Cameron led off the second with his ninth homer, making it 3-0.