Marlins Win on Rocker’s Balk

With the game on the line, John Rocker literally dropped the ball.

The controversial Atlanta Brave reliever balked home the winning run with two outs in the ninth inning Monday night when the ball fell out of his glove, giving the Florida Marlins a 3-2 victory over the Braves at Miami.

“The only quote I’m giving is I’m a horrible player,” said Rocker, who seemed incredulous rather than angry. “I’m just a bad player. That’s the bottom line.”

With the count 2-and-2 to Cliff Floyd and Danny Bautista at third, Rocker took his position on the rubber as the crowd of 14,024 howled. When the ball fell out of Rocker’s glove to the ground, second base umpire Mike DiMuro signaled a balk, and Bautista trotted home.

“I think the umpires didn’t really want to call it, but they couldn’t ignore it,” Brave third baseman Chipper Jones said. “It was a fluky thing.”

Rocker and Manager Bobby Cox briefly spoke to DiMuro as the umpires left the field, but the Braves didn’t dispute the call.

It was the first balk of Rocker’s career, and the first balk of the season by the Braves.

“Of all the ways to win a game,” Marlin Manager John Boles said. “Holy smoke, we’ll take it.”

It was the first game-ending balk in the National League since July 4, 1993, when the Braves beat the Marlins, 4-3, at Atlanta. Deion Sanders scored on rookie Matt Turner’s balk with one out in the bottom of the ninth.

That had been the last game-winning balk in the majors until April 28, when Jeff Zimmerman of the Texas Rangers did it in a 4-3 loss to the Baltimore Orioles.

San Francisco 6, St. Louis 4-- Bobby Estalella hit two homers at San Francisco, including a three-run shot, as the Giants won their seventh in a row.

St. Louis’ first run was a 430-foot homer by Mark McGwire, his 12th of the season and the 534th of his career--tying him with Jimmie Foxx for ninth on the all-time list, two behind Mickey Mantle.

McGwire, who has homered in nine of his last 14 games, hit the ball into the right-center bleachers in the sixth inning against Livan Hernandez. It was the 36th major league park at which McGwire has homered, tying Fred McGriff for the major league record.

Colorado 3, Houston 1--Pedro Astacio pitched a three-hitter and Todd Helton hit a two-run homer at Houston as the Rockies ended a string of 22 scoreless innings.

Astacio (4-2) gave up a leadoff homer to Richard Hidalgo in the fifth, a drive that hit the top of the left-field wall and bounced over for his 10th home run.

Astacio, who also gave up a leadoff single to Bill Spiers in the eighth and a single to Hidalgo in the ninth, struck out 10, walked two and hit a batter in his first complete game this season, and 21st of his career.

Chicago 12, Milwaukee 11--Shane Andrews had a run-scoring single in the 10th inning at Chicago as the Cubs ended a losing streak at four games.

Sammy Sosa and Andrews both hit three-run homers and had with four runs batted in.

Ricky Gutierrez, Mark Grace and Eric Young had solo homers for the Cubs. Jeromy Burnitz hit two homers for the Brewers.