Schilling, Arizona Outlast Giants, 8-5

Curt Schilling yielded a 434-foot homer by Barry Bonds but pitched seven innings of five-hit ball for his 22nd victory as the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the San Francisco Giants, 8-5, Thursday night at San Francisco.

Schilling (22-5), the major league leader in wins, succeeded in his third attempt to match his career-best win total of last season. He yielded homers by Bonds and Tsuyoshi Shinjo, but he struck out seven to boost his season total to 282, second in the majors behind teammate Randy Johnson.

Tony Womack added a three-run triple in the eighth for the Diamondbacks, who boosted their National League West lead to 5 1/2 games over the idle Dodgers and 8 1/2 games over the Giants.

The Giants, who lost for the third time in four games, beat Schilling, 5-0, in Phoenix last week, but they never recovered from Arizona’s four-run first inning in the first game of a key four-game series.

The Diamondbacks’ first eight hitters either reached base or drove in a run against Jason Schmidt (10-7), whose three-game winning streak ended. was snapped. Junior Spivey and Damian Miller both had run-scoring doubles as Arizona spotted Schilling a four-run lead before he had thrown a pitch.

Bonds hit his 608th career homer--a two-run blast that was his 41st of the season--into deep right-center in the fourth. Shinjo added a solo shot in the fifth, but Schilling otherwise kept the Giants in check, beating them for the third time this season.

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Philadelphia 4, Montreal 1--Bobby Abreu homered twice and tripled as the Phillies avoided a four-game sweep with a win at Montreal in front of the smallest crowd in Olympic Stadium history.

Players’ voices could be heard over the sparse and quiet crowd, announced as 2,134--which represents tickets sold. The actual attendance appeared to be closer to 1,000.

Randy Wolf (11-7) gave up five hits in pitching his third complete game of the season. His scoreless innings streak ended at 27 innings when he gave up Vladimir Guerrero’s solo homer with two outs in the first.

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New York 4, Florida 1--Steve Trachsel gave up a run in seven sharp innings as the Mets won at New York. Jeromy Burnitz and Ty Wigginton hit back-to-back homers for the Mets, who have won three in a row after setting an NL record by losing 15 consecutive home games.

Playing their final home game before Sept. 11, the Mets held a pregame “Night of Remembrance” to honor the rescue and recovery workers who labored at the World Trade Center site after the terrorist attacks.

New York Gov. George Pataki addressed the crowd during the 20-minute ceremony. Between innings, the Mets showed brief interviews with the honorees and Manager Bobby Valentine and John Franco, and clips of the cleanup effort.

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Houston 5, San Diego 0--Jeff Bagwell broke a scoreless tie with an RBI single in the 11th and Brian Hunter capped Houston’s five-run inning with a bases-loaded triple as the Astros won at San Diego. Houston moved to within four games of first-place St. Louis in the NL Central.

The Astros had the go-ahead run thrown out at home in the ninth inning when Craig Biggio tried to score from second base on Bagwell’s single. But Cesar Crespo’s throw from left field got Biggio, who was blocked at home by catcher Wiki Gonzalez.