Hampton Has Enough to Beat Arizona

Bothered by a cramp and lacking control, Mike Hampton battled through.

Hampton pitched five ragged but effective innings, and the Colorado Rockies again tripped up the Arizona Diamondbacks, 8-2, Wednesday night at Denver.

Hampton (14-11) gave up two runs and four hits, walked a season-high seven and struck out one. He put two runners on in each of the first three innings, but escaped damage.

In front of 30,301, the smallest home crowd in the nine-year history of the Rockies, Colorado got two runs batted in each from Hampton, Terry Shumpert and Juan Uribe.

Arizona, which lost two of three to the Rockies, remained two games ahead of second-place San Francisco in the NL West.

Luis Gonzalez hit his 52nd home run for Arizona, a two-run drive in the fifth.

Philadelphia 5, Atlanta 2--Scott Rolen delivered yet another big hit and the Phillies defeated Atlanta for the third consecutive game at Philadelphia.

The Phillies moved within a half-game of the first-place Braves in the NL East.

Rolen, who hit two homers against Greg Maddux in Monday’s 5-2 victory and had the game-winning hit against John Smoltz in Tuesday’s 4-3 victory, gave the Phillies a 3-2 lead with a run-scoring single in the sixth against John Burkett (11-11).

Rookie David Coggin (5-5), who had lost four in a row, gave up two runs and five hits in seven innings.

Jose Mesa earned his 38th save.

Chicago 10, Cincinnati 0--Kerry Wood (11-6) gave up two hits in seven innings and struck out nine, and Rondell White and Michael Tucker each drove in four runs at Cincinnati.

Montreal 5, Florida 2--Vladimir Guerrero hit his 34th homer, a two-run drive in the fifth at Montreal that gave him 101 RBIs.

Montreal drew 2,887, the Expos’ smallest home crowd since 2,803 attended a weekday afternoon game on Sept. 27, 1984.

St. Louis 8, Milwaukee 2--Matt Morris (20-7) struck out a career-high 13 to win his 20th and Albert Pujols set an NL rookie RBI record as the Cardinals completed a three-game sweep at St. Louis.

Pujols drove in three runs to give him 120 RBIs, breaking the NL rookie mark of 119 set by Wally Berger in 1930. Ted Williams holds the major league record with 145 in 1939.

New York 9, Pittsburgh 2--Todd Zeile and Mike Piazza homered for the second consecutive game and the Mets finished a three-game sweep at Pittsburgh.

Dicky Gonzalez (3-2) pitched 62/3 shutout innings in relief and the Mets won for the 20th time in 25 games.