Schilling’s Splitter Baffles Braves

Curt Schilling wasn’t trying to keep up with Randy Johnson. It only seemed that way to the Atlanta Braves.

Schilling (4-1) gave up four hits and struck out 10 in eight innings, and the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Braves, 5-2, Tuesday night at Atlanta in a game between the teams in last year’s NL championship series.

OK, so Schilling wasn’t quite as effective as the Big Unit was Sunday. Johnson pitched a two-hitter, striking out 17 in a 7-1 victory over Colorado.

“Randy pitches at another level,” Schilling said. “The game is hard enough as it is. I don’t go out there with the mind-set that I’m going to do better than him.”

Schilling baffled the Braves, getting eight of his strikeouts on swinging strikes as he relied on a split-finger fastball much more than usual.

Andruw Jones hit a home run in the fourth inning for Atlanta and Rafael Furcal’s fly ball in the eighth scored the other run.

Montreal 5, Milwaukee 4--Vladimir Guerrero and Brad Wilkerson each had two-run singles at Montreal and the first-place Expos extended their winning streak to four games.

The Expos, who played before a season-low crowd of 3,561, also won for the sixth time in seven games.

Milwaukee lost for the first time in five games under interim Manager Jerry Royster.

New York 4, St. Louis 3--Vance Wilson, replacing injured Mike Piazza, hit a go-ahead single to lead Jeff D’Amico and the Mets at New York.

Piazza had a run-scoring single in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to eight games, then grabbed his left hamstring as he was running to first.

D’Amico (2-1) gave up a 452-foot, two-run homer to Albert Pujols in the first inning but settled down.

San Francisco 12, Chicago 4--David Bell and Reggie Sanders each hit two-run homers and Tsuyoshi Shinjo had a solo homer at Chicago.

Sammy Sosa accounted for two of the Cubs’ runs with his seventh home run in the sixth.

Kirk Rueter (2-1) gave up two hits in seven innings.

Florida 4, Houston 3--Alex Gonzalez’s one-out single in the 12th inning scored Luis Castillo at Miami.

Castillo had tripled against Brandon Puffer (0-1) with one out, giving him a Marlin-record 23.

Vladimir Nunez (3-0) gave up two hits in three scoreless innings.

Cincinnati 3, Colorado 2--Barry Larkin returned to the Reds’ lineup, getting a go-ahead RBI single in the fourth and making a pivotal play at Cincinnati.

Larkin threw out Jose Ortiz at third base when Ortiz strayed too far in the seventh.

Larkin, who singled twice, has been slowed by pulled muscles in his side.

Philadelphia 8, San Diego 5--Pat Burrell homered and drove in two runs at Philadelphia, and the Phillies’ ended a losing streak at four.

Deivi Cruz’s grand slam against starter Randy Wolf (1-0) capped San Diego’s five-run first. Wolf gave up five runs and three hits in five innings. He retired 12 batters in a row after Cruz’s homer.