National League Roundup : Mitchell Helps Eliminate Astros

Closing out their home season at Candlestick Park, the San Francisco Giants strengthened their hold on the National League West Division lead Sunday with a 10-2 victory over Houston that eliminated the Astros from the race.

A crowd of 50,807 was on hand for final home game of the regular season, putting season total at a record 2,059,829.

They saw Kevin Mitchell hit his major-league leading 47th home run of the season, drive in his 125th run and score his 100th run. The homer gave him at least one this season against every other team in the league.

Mitchell trails only Willie Mays on the Giants’ all-time list for homers in a season. Mays hit 52 in 1965, 49 in 1962 and 47 in 1964. Mitchell said he’d play as much as possible the rest of the way to reach 50, even if it meant playing in pain on his sore knee.

The Giants lead San Diego by five games with six games remaining. Any combination of San Francisco victories and Padre losses totaling two will give the Giants the title.

Robby Thompson also helped the Giants with a three-run homer. Mike LaCoss (9-10) scattered eight hits and struck out four in his first complete game since a shutout of St. Louis, July 8, 1988.

Houston Manager Art Howe said the Giants have been playing well enough lately to beat the Chicago Cubs and win the National League pennant. The Astros will battle San Diego for second.

“I thought we played pretty darn good baseball this year,” Howe said. “We just didn’t get it done when we had to.”

Chicago 4, Pittsburgh 2--The Cubs moved another step closer to the East title, defeating the Pirates in their final regular-season game at Wrigley Field to lower their magic number to three.

Afterward, the Cubs went back out on the field to acknowledge the cheers of the ecstatic Cub fans.

“We owed them something,” Mark Grace said. “They cheered us all year and it was time we cheered them. We didn’t go out there because we thought we have this thing won. We still have our work cut out for us, but we owed them something.”

Chicago concludes the season with three games at Montreal and three at St. Louis.

Cub Manager Don Zimmer said he had mixed feelings about the players parading before the fans. The last time the Cubs did it was in 1984, after the club’s last division title.

“It was different in ‘84,” Zimmer said. “We had clinched in Pittsburgh and when we came home we paraded after the last game. But we haven’t won anything yet.”

Grace led the parade before a crowd of 37,904, which raised season attendance to a franchise record 2,491,942.

Dwight Smith drove in two runs and Ryne Sandberg had two hits as the Cubs won their fourth straight and finished their home season with a 48-33 record.

St. Louis 2, Philadelphia 1--Chuck McElroy’s bases-loaded walk to Tony Pena forced in the go-ahead run in the eighth inning as the Cardinals won at home to remain four games behind Cubs.

The Cardinals will finish the season with three games against the Cubs at home next weekend.

Montreal 6, New York 5--Dave Martinez’s two-out, two-run single capped a five-run ninth-inning rally as the Expos won in New York to push the Mets to the brink of elimination in the East.

Mets’ pitcher David Cone, who allowed two hits in 7 2/3 innings and struck out six, commented on another blown lead: “This was one of my best games of the entire season. And when you see how it ended up, that has to tell you a great deal about our season.”

Atlanta 6, Cincinnati 2--Gary Eave won his second major-league start, while sending the Reds to their 11th loss in 13 games in Atlanta. Eave beat Houston, 3-0, last Tuesday in his first big-league start.