Sosa, Cubs Blast Phillies 9-4

Sammy Sosa insists he's no Mark McGwire. He just hits home runs like him.

Sosa hit two homers for the second straight day and set a major-league record with 16 home runs in June, leading Kerry Wood and the Chicago Cubs past the Philadelphia Phillies 9-4.

"I've never seen anything like it. The game of baseball hasn't seen anything like it," teammate Mark Grace said of Sosa's hot streak.

Wood (7-3), who turned 21 last Tuesday, hit his first big league home run and struck out 11 in 7 1-3 innings.

Sosa had a two-run homer in the third and hit a towering three-run blast in the sixth that landed on the roof deck of a building across Waveland Avenue behind the left-field bleachers.

"He was just trying to show me up," Wood said, laughing, about Sosa's second shot. "I enjoy every home run Sammy hits."

So does Sosa, who now has 20 home runs and 40 RBIs in his last 21 games, and 29 homers for the season.

Sosa, who hit two Friday against the Phillies and three on Monday against Milwaukee, has 28 career multi-homer games.

"Last year, I used to swing at everything," said Sosa, who led the National League in strikeouts in 1997. "This year, I said I'm not going to swing at so many bad pitches. It's working pretty good right now."

The second homer , off Toby Borland, was McGwire-like in its height and distance. It was officially registered at a modest 440 feet.

"I've seen a lot of home runs here but that's the farthest I've ever seen one go," Grace said. "No human being can keep up this hot streak."

"It was one of the hardest hit balls I've ever seen," Borland said.

"I've heard announcers talk about balls going onto Waveland," Phillies manager Terry Francona said. "You might have to go to another street."

Sosa plays down any comparison with McGwire.

" I'm here trying to do my job. Mark McGwire is the man. Everybody knows he's the man," he said.

Babe Ruth (1930), Bob Johnson (1934), Roger Maris (1961) and Pedro Guerrero (1985) also had hit 15 home runs in June. The major league record for most home runs in any month is 18, set by Detroit's Rudy York in August 1937.

The Cubs have nine games left in June.

Wood, who entered the game averaging 13.4 strikeouts per nine innings, struck out at lest 10 batters for the fourth time. He raised his season total to 118, second in the league to Philadelphia's Curt Schilling (157).

"A big strikeout means more to me," Wood said when asked to compare his pitching and hitting. "I just got lucky (with the home run) and made contact."

Unbeaten in seven starts at Wrigley Field, Wood gave up four runs on nine hits and one walk. His first homer was a 400-foot shot to straightaway center leading off the sixth.

The sellout crowd of 39,761, the second largest of the season, tried to get Wood to come out of the dugout for a curtain call, chanting his name, but he refused. Sosa obliged the crowd after his second homer.

Rookies don't take curtain calls?

"No," he said. "I was still in the game."

And how would Wood pitch to Sosa?

" I'd walk him ," Wood said.

Matt Beech (3-4), who had won his last two starts, gave up seven runs on 11 hits and three walks in five innings, striking out six.

"I stunk," Beech said. "The team lost and when you look at the game, you realize I'm the reason the team lost."

Beech recorded his first RBIs of the season with a two-run single with two out in the second. Scott Servais hit an RBI single in the Cubs second.

Mike Lieberthal hit an RBI double and scored on Bobby Abreu's double in the third, giving the Phillies a 4-1 lead.

Brant Brown hit a sacrifice fly in the Cubs fifth for a 5-4 lead.

Notes