San Diego ? Sammy Sosa is aiming for the fences with extra vigor. And he’s not missing.

Slammin’ Sammy homered in consecutive at-bats, giving him four in two games, and the Cubs beat the San Diego Padres, 6-1, Thursday to end their season-high five-game losing streak.

Chicago's sammy sosa connects for his second home run of the game against San Diego. The Cubs defeated the Padres, 6-1, Thursday in San Diego.

Sosa seemed to hop out of the batter’s box with extra energy after he drove his first homer an estimated 426 feet into the seats in left-center field leading off the fourth, the first of a season-high four homers for the Cubs.

“We lost the first two games and today we came out with intensity and got it into our heads that we need some runs,” Sosa said. “When you have that attitude, really, you’ve got something. We played some great ball today.”

Sosa took over the major league lead with 12 homers, one ahead of Houston’s Lance Berkman and Florida’s Cliff Floyd. Sosa also moved into a tie with Jose Canseco for 22nd on the career list with 462. He moved past Ken Griffey Jr., who has 461.

Moises Alou and Alex Gonzalez also connected for the Cubs. All four homers came off Brett Tomko (2-2) in his worst start this season. Tomko hadn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any of his five previous starts, but left trailing 6-0 after allowing homers by Sosa and Alou opening the sixth.

Sosa’s first homer came on a full-count pitch. He got another belt-high fastball on a 3-0 count leading off the sixth and hit a line shot that just cleared the fence 379 feet away in left-center.

“Sometimes when you’re on top of your game, you don’t take anything for granted,” Sosa said. “Each at-bat for me counts. I don’t want to leave nothing there. That’s my game plan.”

The Cubs, who came in with a team batting average of .237 fifth-worst in the majors seemed to feed of Sosa.

“We’ve been waiting for it for a while,” manager Don Baylor said. “I know he has, too. When he starts hitting, he is scary to watch because he knows he’s going to hit it. We’ll take ’em because it means a lot of victories for us.”

Tomko said it almost didn’t matter what pitch he threw. “He’s going to get a pretty good swing on it,” the pitcher said.

“When someone’s that hot, I probably should have thrown it a foot outside and walked him,” Tomko said about Sosa’s second homer.

“He’s hot. Even when I thought I made some pretty good pitches, he hit them pretty hard.”

Gonzalez homered leading off the fifth on a 1-1 pitch, his first, to give the Cubs a 4-0 lead. After Sosa’s second homer, Alou hit Tomko’s next pitch off the scoreboard in left that gives the pitch counts. It was the second of the season for Alou, who was hitting just .147 coming in.

‘We’ve got a great ballclub,” Sosa said. “When everybody’s in place, finding the little thing that they’re missing right now, we’re going to do a lot of damage.”

Braves 3, Brewers 2

Milwaukee Henry Blanco, acquired from the Brewers on March 20 for Paul Bako and Jose Cabrera, homered off Mike DeJean (0-1) in the 10th inning. Darren Holmes (2-0) pitched the ninth and allowed one hit, and John Smoltz picked up his ninth save. Smoltz has not allowed a run in eight consecutive games and 10 innings. Atlanta’s Gary Sheffield was 0-for-4 and is hitless in 28 at-bats.

Astros 8, Expos 2

Houston Craig Biggio hit the 30th leadoff homer of his career and had three hits and three RBIs as Houston prevented Montreal from sweeping a three-game series. Jeff Bagwell added a two-run homer. Tim Redding (1-1) allowed one run and two hits in six innings, and T.J. Mathews and Ricky Stone completed the four-hitter. Carl Pavano (2-3) allowed five runs, nine hits and three walks in 51/3 innings.

Diamondbacks 7, Mets 3

Phoenix Greg Colbrunn doubled, singled home the go-ahead run and scored twice as Arizona beat New York, snapping the Mets’ six-game winning streak. Colbrunn, starting in place of Mark Grace at first base, also made a diving stop of Timo Perez’s grounder to save at least a run in the seventh inning. Colbrunn doubled to lead off the Diamondbacks’ two-run second inning against Shawn Estes, broke a 3-3 tie with a run-scoring single in the fifth.

Estes (1-3) pitched a one-hitter in his last start, retiring the first 18 batters against Milwaukee. Against the Diamondbacks, he gave up five runs on eight hits in five innings.

Danny Bautista, 7-for-13 lifetime against Estes, homered in the third.

The Diamondbacks then loaded the bases without scoring in a fourth-inning that featured a bizarre ground-rule double by Craig Counsell. A “Golden Glove” attendant a woman stationed down the line to gather foul balls caught the hit and tossed it to a fan.

Rockies 7, Pirates 2

Denver John Thomson (4-2) didn’t allow a hit until Armando Rios singled with one out in the seventh, and Colorado improved to 6-0 under new manager Clint Hurdle. Colorado, on its longest winning streak since May 27 to June 2, 2000, set a team pitching record with 24 consecutive scoreless innings before Jason Kendall’s RBI single in the seventh. Kent Mercker and Dennys Reyes combined for hitless relief, with Reyes striking out the side in the ninth.

Marlins 9, Cardinals 6

St. Louis Cliff Floyd hit his third home run in three days and Ramon Castro hit a two-run homer off Dave Veres (2-3) that capped a comeback from a 6-0 deficit. Floyd’s 11th homer, a two-run drive in the fifth, and Floyd added an RBI single in the eighth. He is 11-for-22 his last five games with four homers and 10 RBIs.