Tony LaRussa League Baseball

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Around the league, the New York Stuffgangs have only four wins in their last ten games, but three came at the expense of second place Milwaukee to hang on to first place in a show down series with their nearest competitors, and Bitsy Parrett (4-0) came up with a big 6-3 victory over Montreal to snap a one game losing streak.

A three-run sixth inning gave the New Yorkers the additional cushion they needed to absorb a three-run ninth inning rally by Montreal.

Lloyd Briley picked up his 12th save.

Marlon Vina batting .352 with 7 homeruns and 30 runs batted in this season had two hits and two RBI in the game.

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Milwaukee stayed two behind New York with a 7-3 win over Brooklyn, handing the Steeplechase their fifth straight loss and seventh in their last ten games dropping them six games behind the leaders. Ham Ehrhard got the win 2-4 and also got his first major league hit, a homerun in the8th inning off Harley Quinn to finish off the scoring in the 7-3 game.

Patraig Welch (3-2) took the loss.

Whitney Lockman hit a three run homerun off Ehrhardt with two outs in the ninth inning to brea up Ehrhardt's complete game shutout attemt and Johnny Perez got the final out for Milwaukee/

Glenn Carr slugged his 12th of the season in the 7th with one on off Frank Stein to tie hime with Pittsburgh's Carl Zauchin for the league lead in homeruns.

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Los Ageles 3 Pittsburgh 2

Jim Kepshire hit his 8th homerun in the 6th inning to help hand Pittsburgh its fifth straight loss dropping them six behind the leaders.

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Chicago 7 Atlanta 4

Chicago dropped game one of an important series with seventh place Atlanta in Atlanta 8-6 as starting pitcher Rany McBride took the loss and went only 5.2 inings (7 Hits 7 Runs 4BB/5SO) and tasked the bullpen to fill 3.1 innings by Gene Burton, Ray Markell and Don Jones. The trio allwed one run on one hit (Burton). But the work is so regular at this poit the Whips are considering addoing an arm in the bullpen to lightened the load.

John Smoltz, on the other hand went 8.1 inning for bAltalta for his fourth win 9three losses) giving up seven hits and six runs. Jay Howard bailed him out in the ninth for his fourth save.

The Whips wasted a two hit - three RBI game for ashortstop Jonny Honeycutt and a triple with the bases loaded by Mike Townsend.

In game two the WhipperWills continued a good recent trend of being able to fight back from a series opening loss to set up a rubber game in the finale. They did in this case with a 9-4 win over the Braves scoring a season high seven runs in the first inning off Braves starter Pat Jarvis sending thirteen batters to the plate knocking Jarvis out after scoring seven runs on five hits and Jarvis getting just two outs.

Emmitt Brown, Elmer Anderson and Ray Sierra each had two run hits in the inning and honeycutt had the other RBI with a single.

The Whips left the bases loaded in the long inning. Heinie Baker came in for Jarvis and loaded the bases before he got Townsend to ground out to Chipper Jones at third base.

Lefthander Gale Rogers gave up a run on two hits in the bottom of the first on a single by Rafael Furcal and a triple by Chipper Jones batting right handed.

Chicago got that run back in the 3rd inning. Catcher Syd Gilligan singled to right field. Rogers bunted poorly and the runner was forced at second, Baker to Furcal covering. Ray Sierra lined a shot into the left field conrner that scored Rogers and went for a sliding triple to make it 8-1.

Atlanta had a big third inning scoring three runs off Rogers to cut the lead to 8-4. Furcal led off with a solo homerun. Lonnie Shelton grounded a single to centerfield and Jones nibbled too much to Jones and walked him. Henry Aaron singled to right field with two strikes driving in Shelton. Dale Murphy fouled out to McAllister reaching into the stands behind first base. *Mark Kilhullen singled to right field. Right fielder Elmer Anderson got to the ball quickly and threw Aaron out at the plate to end the inning.

8-4, a high scoring affair after just four innings.

The oft used WhipperWill bullpen did their thing again in this game. Ray Markel and Jones split four scoreless innings and Chicago added a final run in the top of the 8th off Jay Howard when Mike Townsend bombed his 2nd of the season.

Hyrim Castino pitched the scoreless ninth, with no save on the line.

Chicago needs to take the rubber game finale to close within three games of escaping last place.