McGwire, Drew pace Cardinals
June 18 2000
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Tony La Russa is more impressed by the fact that his St. Louis Cardinals are a season-best 11 games over .500 than he is about the team increasing its NL Central lead by five games in a five-day span.

"I really don’t pay attention to that," La Russa said after yesterday’s 4-3 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers. "I mean, that’s really not how you play the season and not what you focus on this time of the year."

Mark McGwire hit his 24th home run and J.D. Drew hit a three-run shot, helping St. Louis extend its winning streak to a season-high six games.

The victory, coupled with Cincinnati’s loss at San Diego, increased the Cardinals’ lead in the NL Central to 6½ games. The Cardinals (39-28) are off to their best start since 1987, when they began 41-26 on the way to the NL pennant.

"You need to accumulate a high win total and assume that something else will happen," said La Russa, who has won four division titles with Oakland and one with the Cardinals. "Plus-11 is our high for the year, so that’s much more pleasing to me. We could be a game ahead, and I’d still be happy."

Andy Benes (7-3) won his third straight start, allowing two runs and seven hits in six innings, including Gary Sheffield’s two-run homer in the fifth.


The right-hander had a season-high 10 strikeouts for the second consecutive outing en route to his second victory in 11 career decisions at Dodger Stadium - and his first since his rookie season with San Diego, when he beat then-reigning Cy Young winner Orel Hershiser 1-0 on Sept. 24, 1989.

"I felt like the odds were in my favor," Benes said. "I’ve thrown a lot of pretty decent games here, but have been on the wrong end. You know you’re not going to score a lot of runs against their pitching. But today we had two guys on when we hit a home run and they had one guy on."

Sheffield led off the eighth with a double against Matt Morris, continued to third on right fielder Eric Davis’ error and scored on Shawn Green’s groundout to make it 4-3. But Dave Veres pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his 13th save in 16 chances.

After giving up a leadoff single in the fifth inning to Edgar Renteria and hitting Jim Edmonds with a pitch, Darren Dreifort (4-5) struck out McGwire and Ray Lankford back-to-back for the second time. But Drew hit a letter-high 0-2 fastball to right-center for his 11th homer and a 3-0 lead.

"I’ve got to make a better pitch than that," Dreifort said. "But Edmonds takes first base on a ball that didn’t hit him and missed him by 10 inches. Otherwise, we’re still out there playing right now. Little things make a difference."

The injury-plagued Dodgers lost for the fifth time in seven games despite getting third baseman Adrian Beltre off the disabled list. Then there is the matter of those suspensions from the brawl with Wrigley Field fans back on May 16. The hearings will take place in Houston during the middle of the week.

"With everything that’s happening to us right now, it’s like a hockey team with five guys in the penalty box and the other team has a power play - every day," Dreifort said. "They’re going to come right at you with all they’ve got, and we’ve got to shoot back at them with all we’ve got."

McGwire made it 4-2, driving Antonio Osuna’s first pitch of the seventh inning to left field for his 546th career homer. He is two shy of Mike Schmidt for seventh place on the career list, and attempting to become the first player to win three consecutive home run titles since Schmidt did it in 1976.

Dreifort, who pitched a two-hit shutout against the Cardinals on May 12, gave up singles to his first two batters of the game before striking out Edmonds, McGwire and Lankford in succession.

The right-hander made it five in a row by fanning Drew and Mike Matheny to start the second inning.

Dreifort lost for the fourth time in five starts despite finishing with a season-high nine strikeouts, one off his career high.

He gave up three runs and eight hits in five innings.

McGwire has struck out six times in 10 career at-bats against Dreifort, who surrendered one of McGwire's 65 homers last season on May 22 at Dodger Stadium.


Copyright 2000 Associated Press.

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