Bonds Homers Again, but Giants Can’t Win

Barry Bonds tied a major league record with his eighth homer in five games and became the quickest player in history to 23 homers in a season, but the Arizona Diamondbacks got homers from Greg Colbrunn and Reggie Sanders and Curt Schilling pitched a six-hitter to beat the Giants, 4-2, Monday night at Phoenix.

It was San Francisco’s fourth loss during Bonds’ five-game home run streak.

The only victory came Saturday, when he homered three times in a 6-3 win over the Atlanta Braves. The next day, Bonds had two homers, but the Braves combined for five and beat the Giants, 11-6.

It was more of the same in the series opener between the NL West rivals.

Colbrunn sent Arizona to a 1-0 lead when he led off the second inning with a drive to right-center off Kirk Rueter (4-5). Bonds tied the score in the fourth, but the Diamondbacks took a 3-1 lead on Sanders’ fifth-inning shot. Rueter walked Mark Grace ahead of Sanders.

Bonds was one for four in the game.

Bonds’ eighth homer in five days equaled the mark set by Frank Howard, who did it twice in 1968 with Washington. It also broke the National League record held by Jim Bottomley (1929), Johnny Bench (1972) and Mike Schmidt (1979). Each had seven in a five-game stretch.

The homer also gave Bonds 23 in San Francisco’s 44 games this season, marking the fastest any player has reached that total. Mark McGwire reached 23 home runs in St. Louis’ 47th game during his record-setting 70-homer season in 1998.

San Diego 7, Houston 6--Ryan Klesko hit two three-run home runs and a triple and drove in six runs for the Padres at Houston.

Klesko’s second home rungave San Diego a 7-5 lead in the seventh. After Shane Reynolds (4-3) walked Rickey Henderson and Mark Kotsay singled, Reynolds was replaced by Jay Powell. Klesko hit Powell’s first pitch into the upper deck in right field for his 10th homer of the season.

New York 6, Montreal 3--Tsuyoshi Shinjo played the hero for a second consecutive game, hitting a tie-breaking three-run double at Montreal.

After a game-winning RBI single with two out in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Dodgers on Sunday, Shinjo cleared the bases with a two-out double off Britt Reames (2-6) in the sixth to break a 2-2 tie.

Atlanta 5, Florida 3--Andruw Jones had two home runs and four RBIs and Tom Glavine allowed five hits over seven innings at Miami.

Jones hit his 11th and 12th home runs--the 11th multi-homer game of his career--to helpthe Braves win for the fifth time in seven games.

He hit a solo shot in the first inning off Matt Clement (2-4), then added a two-run shot in the sixth. He also had an RBI single in the third.

Glavine (5-2) gave up one run and struck out six en route to his first win since April 28.