Sports: First-place Phils get to Maddux

First-place Phils get to Maddux

Compiled from Times wires

PHILADELPHIA -- Robert Person pitched six shutout innings and Travis Lee homered as the Phillies scored the first earned run off Greg Maddux this season and beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 Saturday night.

The Phillies, who tied the Chicago Cubs for the worst record in the majors last season, have won two straight and are in first place in the East.

Maddux, a four-time NL Cy Young Award winner, hadn't allowed an earned run in 23 innings before Lee hit a two-out homer in the fourth.

Maddux has not walked a batter in 27 innings and has allowed six earned runs in his past 67 innings since Sept. 2.

Person left after the first two runners reached in the seventh.

With the bases loaded, Wayne Gomes struck out Brian Jordan and Rheal Cormier struck out pinch-hitter Wes Helms to end the inning. Ricky Bottalico pitched the eighth, and Jose Mesa allowed a run-scoring double to Chipper Jones in the ninth.

Lee gave the Phillies a 1-0 lead by lining a 3-and-1 pitch over the right-centerfield fence. It was Lee's first homer in 77 at-bats since Sept. 21.

Lee, acquired from Arizona in the Curt Schilling trade, hit one homer in 180 at-bats with the Phillies last season.

CUBS 4, PIRATES 3: Todd Hundley's gradual hitting progress made a dramatic acceleration against Pittsburgh.

Hundley led off the ninth inning with his second homer of the game for visiting Chicago.

"This is the swing I've been looking for since spring training," Hundley said. "I finally found it in Pittsburgh."

Hundley, who entered batting .154 with no homers, connected off Mike Williams to open the ninth for the Cubs (12-5), who have won four straight and are off to their best start since 1975. The Cubs have won nine of 10, five straight against the Pirates.

Hundley said he has been putting in extra work trying to find his hitting stroke. He said he felt as though he started making progress earlier last week, and the results couldn't have been much better Saturday.

METS 5, REDS 2: Cincinnati gave Kevin Appier all the help he needed.

Appier retired 16 of 17 in one stretch and scored for the first time in his 13-year major-league career as visiting New York took advantage of five unearned runs.

"We did a good job of taking advantage of their mistakes," Appier said. "They had a really good game offensively yesterday. Fortunately, we were able to keep them pretty much at bay today."

Appier has not allowed more than three runs in any of his four starts this season.

"I haven't had a tremendous amount of dominating games," Appier said. "But I feel I've been fairly consistent on a pretty good level."

Todd Zeile hit a two-run single in a four-run third inning as New York took advantage of four Cincinnati errors, the most the Reds have committed in a game since opening day of the 1998 season.

It was a day that Barry Larkin, who had two errors and has six this season, would like to forget.

"It was totally screwed up. Everything just snowballed," Larkin said. "You're going to have games like that. You can't say a lot about it."

CARDINALS 9, ASTROS 2: J.D. Drew homered twice and drove in three runs to lead visiting St. Louis.

"J.D. got us going early," manager Tony La Russa said. "He had some good at-bats today, including a couple of walks."

Drew homered in the first and fourth innings off Jose Lima for his fifth career multihomer game. Six of Drew's 10 hits this season have been homers.

"That's not a bad thing," Drew said. "I'm seeing the ball great and having good at-bats. This is definitely a lift for me. It was just a matter of getting some pitches out over the plate."

BREWERS 6, GIANTS 3: Jose Hernandez and Jeromy Burnitz homered as Milwaukee won for the second time in eight road games.

Paul Rigdon beat San Francisco for the second time in one week. He also had a run-scoring single.

Geoff Jenkins had three hits for the Brewers, who improved to 8-1 when scoring four or more.

Shawon Dunston homered for the Giants. Barry Bonds, who has homered in seven of his past eight games, and Rich Aurilia, who had a 13-game hitting streak snapped Friday night, didn't start for San Francisco.

MARLINS 5, EXPOS 0: Brad Penny pitched his first career shutout and Alex Gonzalez hit a two-run homer for host Florida.

Penny pitched a four-hitter in his 26th career start. The Marlins have a 1.38 ERA over the past six games, four of them wins.

The Marlins gave Penny all the support he needed in the fourth on Mike Lowell's two-run double.