Wood Shuts Down Padres

Kerry Wood struck out 10 and Sammy Sosa hit a 448-foot homer as the Chicago Cubs beat the San Diego Padres, 3-2, on Wednesday night at San Diego.

Wood leads the majors with 192 strikeouts. He moved within nine of 1,000 lifetime in 133 big league starts.

The right-hander struck out the side on 10 pitches in the fifth; the only ball he threw was on the second pitch to Ramon Vazquez.

Wood (11-8) gave up Mark Loretta’s homer to left-center field leading off the eighth that cut the Cubs’ lead to 3-2. He struck out Phil Nevin on his 118th pitch, then made way for left-hander Mark Guthrie.

Wood gave up two runs and five hits in 7 1/3 innings. He walked four.

Sosa hit a two-run homer off Adam Eaton (6-8) in the fourth inning, his 25th of the season and 524th of his career.

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Arizona 3, Montreal 2 -- Carlos Baerga’s tiebreaking pinch-hit single in the eighth inning led the Diamondbacks at Phoenix.

Baerga looped an opposite-field hit that dropped in front of left fielder Brad Wilkerson, and Alex Cintron scored from second base with the go-ahead run.

Cintron reached on a two-out single off Luis Ayala (7-3) and went to second on Raul Mondesi’s base hit, setting up Baerga’s winner. Mondesi overran second on Baerga’s hit and the rally ended when he was tagged out by third baseman Jamey Carroll.

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Florida 7, St. Louis 3 -- Rookie Dontrelle Willis pitched eight impressive innings and Ivan Rodriguez homered to lead the Marlins at St. Louis.

Willis (11-2), who beat Randy Johnson in his last outing, shrugged off a shaky start to tie the team record for victories by a rookie set by Brian Meadows in 1998.

In his last three starts, Willis has given up only five runs and 12 hits in 21 innings with 19 strikeouts and six walks.

Cardinal rookie Dan Haren (2-3), who threw seven shutout innings in his last start, gave up five runs on 10 hits in six-plus innings.

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Colorado 5, Philadelphia 1 -- Chin-hui Tsao gave up two hits in six innings, and Todd Helton hit a three-run homer in the Rockies’ victory over the Phillies at Denver.

Tsao (2-0), the first Taiwanese pitcher in the major leagues, combined with three relievers on a five-hitter. Tsao struck out five and walked two and retired 10 straight during one stretch for his second win at Coors Field.

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Atlanta 10, Milwaukee 2 -- Greg Maddux won his fifth consecutive game, and Marcus Giles and Andruw Jones each hit a pair of home runs as the Braves won at Milwaukee.

Julio Franco also homered for Atlanta, which has avoided losing three straight games since dropping the season-opening series to Montreal.

Maddux (11-8) is unbeaten in his last seven starts and has held opponents to 14 earned runs in 46 innings in those starts.

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Houston 11, New York 1 -- Adam Everett hit the first inside-the-park home run at Minute Maid Park in Houston, and Jeff Bagwell and Richard Hidalgo each homered and drove in three runs to lead the Astros.

Wade Miller (8-10) gave up one run and six hits in six innings for the victory for Houston, which used a 15-hit attack to beat the Mets. Geoff Blum also homered and Lance Berkman had four hits.