BY R.B. FALLSTROM
AP Sports Writer
ST. LOUIS -- Mark McGwire's cushion is going, going, gone. So, for a while, was his composure.
McGwire had two games to answer Sammy Sosa's two-homer salvo, but came up empty. So the home run derby remained tied at 65 Thursday night after McGwire went 1-for-3 with a walk in the St. Louis Cardinals' 6-3 victory over the Montreal Expos.
Speaking to a pool reporter, an angry McGwire was a man of few words.
"It was just another game," McGwire said. "Am I tired right now? No."
McGwire, who last homered on Sunday, is 2-for-10 -- both singles -- in the first three games of the Cardinals' season-ending, six-game homestand. And now both he and Sosa, who had the day off, have three games to go to settle the race.
Win, lose or draw, McGwire said tersely that he's at peace.
"Yeah," McGwire said. "That's why I don't understand the big fuss."
Later, he was asked what he expected to happen in the last three games.
"I have no idea," he snapped.
Before the game, Expos manager Felipe Alou promised that his pitchers would challenge McGwire, saying: "We're not going to walk him like cowards, but we're not going to put it on a tee for him." There were no complaints from the other clubhouse.
"This is a competition, you're supposed to compete," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa said. "As long as a guy is competing against you and they make good pitches ... they just pitched him really tough.
"He's concentrating, but he's not having a lot of fun because there's not a lot in that area to swing at."
Rookie Javier Vazquez (5-15) looked a bit skittish in the first when he walked McGwire on four pitches to extend his NL record to 160. For that, Vazquez was booed when he came to the plate in the second inning.
"I think I was trying to be too perfect," Vazquez said. "I thought about it too much. After I walked him, I decided on the next two at-bats to just relax and throw like I always do."
McGwire got at least a few pitches to swing at his last two at-bats against Vazquez, taking a called third strike on a 2-2 breaking ball in the third and singling through short in the fifth.
After Brian Jordan greeted Shayne Bennett with his 25th homer in the seventh, McGwire hit a comebacker to the mound on a checked swing.
Vazquez made his first career start against the Cardinals, and the remainder of the Expos' starters have little or no history against McGwire. He's 0-for-3 with three walks and an RBI against Miguel Batista, who starts today.
