Andrews, Cubs Club Braves

Shane Andrews is on quite the wild ride, and he's going to enjoy it as long as he can.

Andrews homered twice Wednesday, including his second three-run homer in as many at-bats, as the Chicago Cubs outslugged the Atlanta Braves 11-4.

The homers gave Andrews five for the year and 12 RBIs, putting him for a few hours, at least among the NL leaders.

"I'm feeling good at the plate. I just want to keep it rolling," he said. "It's awful early, though."

The loss spoiled a big day by Chipper Jones, who drove in all four Atlanta runs. The 1999 NL MVP homered twice and added an RBI single.

"The wind's been blowing in here the last two days, and the ball's been going out of the park," Jones said. "It used to be if the wind was blowing in here, you didn't hit a ball out of here. Now, bam, bam, bam every inning there's one."

"I don't know if it's the ball, I don't know if it's pitching," he said. "I'm going to say it's the hitter."

Andrews isn't quite sure what's behind his sudden power surge, and he's not about to question it. He hia game-tying, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth in Monday's home opener, and he didn't wait long to go deep Wednesday.

After former-Cub Terry Mulholland (0-2) walked Sammy Sosa and gave up a single to Hill in the first, Andrews put a fastball in the left-field bleachers. He was rounding first as it went out, and he clapped his hands when he saw it clear the wall.

"I wasn't sure on the first one. I wasn't sure what the wind was doing," he said. "I saw it go out of the park and I was pretty excited."

Eric Young, who led off the first with a double, also scored on Mark Grace's sacrifice fly to give the Cubs a 4-0 lead after the first.

The Cubs rocked Mulholland again with another four-run inning in the fifth. With Young and Sosa on base, Hill sent a 2-1 pitch deep down the left-field line. It looked like it might hook foul, but instead stayed just right of the pole.

That brought up Andrews, who sent Mulholland's 1-0 pitch over the left field fence and bouncing down Kenmore Avenue for the 8-2 lead.

It was Andrews' fifth multihomer game of his career.

"It's never easy against this ballclub," Baylor said of his old team. "We just kept adding on. Guys kept getting timely hits and Shane had another unbelievable day."

For Mulholland, the day was unbelievably bad. He gave up eight runs all of them earned and seven hits in 4 2-3 innings. It was his second rough outing in a row; he gave up five runs four earned in 3 2-3 innings last Friday.

"I stink. I'm embarrassed to be out there throwing the way I'm throwing right now," he said. "It's not fair to these other guys in the clubhouse to have to put up with that kind of performance today."

Farnsworth allowed just one walk and an error over the first three innings, but Jones spoiled his no-hit bid when he led off the fourth inning with a home run.

Atlanta threatened to add a few more runs after Farnsworth walked Bobby Bonilla and Walt Weiss, and Andruw Jones reached on Andrews' error. But Farnsworth got Mulholland on a bloop single to second to end the inning.

Chipper Jones drove in another run in the fifth on aRBI single, and hit a two-run homer in the seventh.

"I felt good today, so I was going to go right at them," Farnsworth said. "You get in a groove and you keep on going."

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