National League Roundup : Murphy’s 19th Homer Powers Braves, 4-1

Dale Murphy, who has been struggling at the plate lately, started off July with a bang.

One day after he concluded the month of June with a .229 batting average, Murphy belted a two-run homer and a single Monday to lead the Atlanta Braves to a 4-1 victory over the Giants at San Francisco.

Murphy’s 19th home run, which came in the third inning, followed a single by Claudell Washington and tied him with the Dodgers’ Pedro Guerrero and Oakland’s Dave Kingman for the major league lead. It also gave rookie Zane Smith (5-4) a 2-0 lead over Mike Krukow (5-6) in the third inning.

“It doesn’t take much to improve on what I’ve done lately,” said Murphy, bemoaning his June swoon. With runners on base, however, the Atlanta star is batting .339 with 11 homers and 43 runs batted in.

Terry Harper homered in the fourth to make it 3-0 and Smith allowed three hits in 7 innings. Smith, who pitched a seven-hit shutout against the Giants on June 10, this time blanked them on two hits until the eighth. The Giants scored after Jose Uribe was safe on third baseman Ken Oberkfell’s fielding error, went to second on Smith’s wild pitch and scored on a two-out single by Manny Trillo.

Bruce Sutter pitched the ninth for his 15th save.

The Braves have now won six of their last eight games, while the Giants have lost 11 of 12.

Chicago 3, Philadelphia 1--Ray Fontenot scattered seven hits in seven innings and catcher Steve Lake squeezed home the winning run with a sixth-inning bunt as the Cubs won at Philadelphia, but the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt stole the show.

Schmidt took the field in the bottom of the first wearing a long, flowing wig and dark glasses.

The crowd of 23,091 that had booed Schmidt when he struck out in the top of the first cheered and laughed as Schmidt, still wearing the wig and glasses, took warmup tosses from the other infielders.

Schmidt, in an interview conducted by Peter Hadekel of the Montreal Gazette April 29 but not published until Saturday, ripped Philadelphia fans for booing him during his 13-year career.

“I’ll tell you something about my playing in Philadelphia--whatever I’ve got in my career now, I would have had a great more if I’d played my whole career in Los Angeles or Chicago, you name a town, somewhere where they were just grateful to have me around,” Schmidt was quoted as saying.

Some fans entering Veterans Stadium wore T shirts inscribed, “Beyond Help, Phillies’ Fans.”

Schmidt said: “I feel that it’s a dead issue and don’t want to comment on it.”

Montreal 3, St. Louis 2--Andre Dawson singled to score Jim Wohlford from third base in the bottom of the 10th inning at Montreal as the Expos moved to within a half-game of the first-place Cardinals in the National League East.

The Expos’ starting pitcher was Floyd Youmans, a minor leaguer who was called up Saturday from Jacksonville of the Double-A Southern League. Youmans didn’t get the victory, but Expo Manager Buck Rodgers was pleased.

“He was throwing the ball at 93, 94 miles an hour,” he said. “He was very poised. He’ll stay with the club for awhile.”

Youmans, one of four players acquired from the New York Mets last December in exchange for Gary Carter, went 6 innings, giving up six hits and two runs. He walked five and struck out five.

The victory was credited to reliever Gary Lucas (3-0), who pitched two innings.

Wohlford was pinch hitting for Lucas in the tenth when he drew a one-out walk off Rickey Horton (0-2), and moved to second when Tim Raines walked. After Wohlford took third on a fly out by Mitch Webster, Dawson greeted Bob Forsch with his game-winning single down the left-field line.

San Diego 6, Houston 5--Bruce Bochy hit a two-out home run in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Padres a come-from-behind victory at San Diego.

Bochy hit the first pitch from Nolan Ryan (8-6) into the left-field seats for his third home run of the season. The home run made a winner of reliever Goose Gossage (2-1), who came in to pitch the 10th for the Padres.

The Padres trailed 5-4 going into the ninth inning, but loaded the bases with none out off Ryan and tied the game on pinch-hitter Kurt Bevacqua’s sacrifice fly.

Padre starter LaMarr Hoyt allowed 11 hits in the seven innings he worked, six of them in the first two innings when the Astros jumped to a 4-0 lead.

Ryan struck out seven to bring him within 10 of 4,000 career strikeouts.

Pittsburgh 1, New York 0--Rick Reuschel shut out the Mets for 6 innings, then got relief help from John Candelaria at New York as the Pirates handed the Mets their sixth straight loss.

The lone Pirate run came on a second-inning double by Marvell Wynne following two walks by Sid Fernandez (2-5).

Reuschel (6-1) was in trouble only once as he breezed through the first six innings. But with two outs in the seventh, Rafael Santana singled and took third on a single by pinch-hitter Howard Johnson.

Candelaria then took over and recorded his eighth save, allowing only a one-out double by Ray Knight in the ninth.

Reuschel, who allowed five hits, struck out seven and walked two.