PHILADELPHIA (AP) -Jeff Francis held the league’s highest-scoring team in check, and the Colorado Rockies took advantage of one shaky inning by Cole Hamels to beat the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2 in Game 1 of their NL playoff series Wednesday.
Making just the second postseason appearance in the franchise’s 15-year history, the Rockies posted only their second postseason victory, the other coming in 1995.
Matt Holliday, his chin still cut up from the face-first slide that won Monday’s wild-card tiebreaker over San Diego, hit a solo home run. Colorado carried over its momentum from that victory, and won for the 15th time in 16 games.
Francis, a 17-game winner who came in with a 15.12 ERA against the Phils this season, pitched six effective innings and stayed out of big trouble. He helped to hold the Phillies’ top trio of Chase Utley, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins to 0-for-11 with eight strikeouts.
Francis gave up four hits and struck out eight, his only blemishes coming in the fifth when Aaron Rowand and Pat Burrell hit consecutive homers. Three relievers pitched three hitless innings, with Manny Corpas closing for a save.
Hamels, the 23-year-old All-Star lefty, was outstanding except for one inning. Making his first career start against the Rockies, he allowed three runs and three hits in 6 2-3 innings. Hamels uncharacteristically walked four and fanned seven.
Todd Helton lined a triple to start the second and Garrett Atkins doubled, giving the Rockies an early lead. Yorvit Torrealba’s one-out single drove in Atkins.
With two outs and the bases loaded, Hamels got ahead of Tulowitzki 0-2 before walking him to force in another run. But he struck out Holliday swinging on a changeup to leave the bases full, then retired the next 12 batters.
Holliday, the MVP candidate, gave the Rockies an insurance run when he ripped Tom Gordon’s pitch into the left-center field seats for a 4-2 lead in the eighth.
MORE
Add A Comment