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SportsSeptember 6, 2001

SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Padres got some hits -- eight of them -- and scored a run. Other than that, their offensive slump continued as they were beaten 6-1 by the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night. Matt Morris pitched seven shutout innings to join Arizona's Curt Schilling as the only 19-game winners in the majors, and rookie Albert Pujols hit his 33rd homer for the Cardinals...

By Bernie Wilson, The Associated Press

SAN DIEGO -- The San Diego Padres got some hits -- eight of them -- and scored a run.

Other than that, their offensive slump continued as they were beaten 6-1 by the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night.

Matt Morris pitched seven shutout innings to join Arizona's Curt Schilling as the only 19-game winners in the majors, and rookie Albert Pujols hit his 33rd homer for the Cardinals.

Morris (19-7) followed rookie Bud Smith's no-hitter by allowing six hits, striking out five and walking none to win his seventh straight start. He also beat the Padres in his previous start, 13-3 at St. Louis on Thursday.

The Padres have scored only two runs in 31 innings dating to Sunday, when they beat Arizona 1-0 in 13 innings.

"I think it's more a case where we've run into real good pitching," manager Bruce Bochy said.

They struck out 14 times against Randy Johnson on Sunday, then were no-hit by Smith in Monday's 4-0 loss.

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Then they ran into Morris.

Morris' previous highest win total was 12 as a rookie in 1997. He missed all of 1999 after undergoing reconstructive elbow surgery.

"It's just another win now," Morris said. "I'm looking to win the rest of our ballgames. We're in a race here. It's not about 20 wins and shutting it down or anything like that."

The Cardinals won for the fifth time in seven games and are third in the NL Central, six games behind Houston. They're tied for third with Los Angeles in the wild card race, two games behind Chicago.

"It makes me concentrate a little bit more when it comes to the last month of the season and you're in a race," Morris said. "It makes it that much more exciting to pitch and obviously to do well."

Morris allowed two hits each in the second, third and fourth innings, then retired the last 11 batters he faced.

"We just couldn't string hits together and couldn't really start a rally," San Diego's Mark Kotsay said.

Reliever Steve Kline started the eighth and allowed an RBI single by former Cardinal Ray Lankford with two outs.

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