Bonds Sets Record in Loss

Barry Bonds homered in his last at-bat to set a National League record with nine homers in six games, but Mark Grace had four runs batted in Tuesday night to help lead the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 12-8 victory over the San Francisco Giants.

Bonds came up in the ninth inning against Russ Springer, who gave up a leadoff double to Rich Aurilia, and sent a 404-foot shot into the right-center field grandstand.

With the homer, Bonds stayed ahead of Mark McGwire’s record-setting pace in 1998, when the St. Louis slugger finished with 70 homers. Bonds has 24 homers in the Giants’ first 45 games--three games faster than McGwire.

Bonds fell one homer short of Frank Howard’s major league mark of 10 homers in six games set May 12-18, 1968, for the Washington Senators. Bonds tied Howard for the five-game record Monday night, hitting No. 8 of his record surge against Curt Schilling.

Diamondback starter Brian Anderson (2-3) walked Bonds twice and gave up an opposite-field single to him in the fifth inning. Reliever Byung-Hyun Kim got out of a jam by retiring the Giants just before Bonds came up in the sixth, then got him to pop up to left field to start the seventh.

Grace led the Diamondbacks’ 15-hit attack with a pair of doubles and a two-run single. Steve Finley hit a two-run double that made the score 5-1 in the fifth and hit a solo homer in eighth inning.

Jay Bell had two RBIs, Reggie Sanders drove in a run on a sacrifice fly, Anderson singled in a run and Tony Womack had the other run-scoring groundout for the Diamondbacks, who are 6-2 in their last eight games.

Russ Ortiz (6-3) struggled with his control, walking four. He also gave up eight hits and five runs as the Giants lost for the sixth time in seven games.

Russ Davis of the Giants broke out of a slump by going three for four, including a solo homer in the fourth, and Benito Santiago drove in two runs with a pinch-hit single.

Anderson, who lost his first three starts but is unbeaten in his last four, gave up seven hits and four runs in 5 1/3 innings.

He walked a season-high four batters while striking out four.