Cards, Tatis Slam By Brewers

April 8, 1999 / 7:10 PM EDT / CBS/AP

Fernando Tatis has a two-homer lead on Mark McGwire, and he's closing in on one of McGwire's records.

Tatis homered for the third straight game, hitting a three-run drive off Jim Abbott in the pitcher's NL debut as the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 9-4 Thursday.

If Tatis homers Friday, when St. Louis faces the Cincinnati Reds and Pete Harnish, he'll match McGwire (last season) and Willie Mays (1971) as the only players to homer in each of the season's first four games.

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"I'm surprised too," Tatis said. "I don't consider myself a power hitter, I just hit the ball good."

Tatis hit 11 homers in 532 at-bats last season, eight after the Cardinals acquired him from Texas on July 31. He hit a solo homer in the season opener and a two-run shot in Wednesday night's 4-1 win, giving him six RBIs this week.

"His potential is to have a lot of great at-bats and hit the ball hard," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "The more he tries to hit home runs, the less he's going to hit them."

Abbott (0-1) lasted five innings and allowed six runs and five hits. The pitcher, who has just one hand, was 0-for-2 against Kent Mercker in the first regular-season at-bats of his career, although it took a perfect play by Tatis at third to catch him by a half-step on a chopper to start the third.

"I haven't seen too many lefties, so he looked like Randy Johnson to me," Abbott said. "Kent wasn't throwing real hard, but to me he was."

Mercker was well aware of the situation before the game. He said his agent played with Abbott in college and told him, "If you give up a hit, you'll be a trivia question for the rest of your life."

"I just approached him like anyone else just throw strikes and don't lay one down the middle. He's got as good a chance as I do of getting a hit up there," said Mercker, a caeer .106 hitter.

McGwire, who homered in the opener, was 0-for-3 with an intentional walk. He scored on Tatis' home run, which put the Cardinals ahead 6-3.

Shawon Dunston also homered for the Cardinals. St. Louis added three runs in the sixth off Valerio de los Santos on an RBI double by pinch-hitter Placido Polanco, a run-scoring single by Darren Bragg and a wild pitch.

Bobby Hughes homered and had an RBI double for Milwaukee. Sean Berry had three hits and Jeff Cirillo had two for the Brewers.

Mercker (1-0) also lasted five innings and allowed three runs and eight hits.

Notes: Mercker entered the game with a career April ERA of 5.65, but this was the five-year anniversary of his no-hitter for Atlanta in 1994. ... Cardinals rookie center fielder J.D. Drew, 0-for-6 with three walks in the first two games, got the day off. ... Abbott lost for the first time since Sept. 26, 1996, when he wound up a 2-18 season with the Angels. He was out of baseball after spring training in 1997 and was 5-0 with a 4.55 ERA for the Chicago White Sox last September.