Sosa smacks home run No. 55 to tie McGwire for ML lead

Sammy Sosa, who homered to tie Mark McGwire for the major league lead, came out of the dugout to celebrate two home runs. The second, however, wasn't his.

Sosa took a curtain call after his 55th homer, in the third inning of Monday night's 5-4 victory over Cincinnati, tied McGwire, who went homerless at Florida, for the major league lead. An inning later, Sosa stood in for Kerry Wood.Wood gave the Cubs, who remained tied for the lead with the New York Mets in the NL wild-card race, the lead with a two-run shot. The Wrigley Field crowd chanted for him to step out of the dugout. And when Wood wouldn't, the Cubs' expert took his place.

"I was still in the game and I wasn't going to go out," the rookie right-hander (13-6) said. "I wouldn't want a pitcher to take a curtain call if I was in his park and he hit a home run off me."

So Sosa took the bonus curtain call.

"He's been taking them all year, so what's one more for him?" Wood said.

"He didn't want to go," Sosa said. "Hey, but you know we take that as a joke. Kerry Wood came through big, pitching and hitting. He surprised me."

Sosa, who has homered 16 times in games Wood has started, moved within one homer of tying Hack Wilson's 68-year-old club and National League record when he lined an 0-1 pitch from Brett Tomko (11-11) into the left-field bleachers.

" I threw a little bit of everything at Sammy, but unfortunately I threw a bad pitch," Tomko said. "He's having an unbelievable season. I don't think anyone's hotter in baseball, including McGwire."

CARDINALS 5, MARLINS 3: McGwire went 0-for-3 and lost his lead in the home run race, but teammate Brian Jordan homered to help St. Louis.

McGwire struck out twice, walked twice, fouled out and fell to 0-for-9 lifetime against Marlins starter Kirt Ojala (1-4).

McGwire, who along with Sosa needs one homer to equal Wilson's NL record, worked the count to 3-2 on each of his five trips to the plate, with the Florida crowd of 36,584 rooting for the Cardinals slugger.

ASTROS 4, BRAVES 3: Houston scored three runs in the ninth on six singles and rallied at Atlanta to win for the 41st time this season.

Houston, held to just two hits in the first eight innings by John Smoltz (13-3), got five straight singles to start the ninth.