Denver – Yorvit Torrealba’s two-out single off J.D. Durbin in the 11th inning drove home Garrett Atkins from second base, lifting the Colorado Rockies to a 7-6 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Friday night.
Atkins drew a one-out walk and Brad Hawpe, whose ninth-inning homer tied it, singled up the middle. After Troy Tulowitzki struck out, Torrealba sent a 1-1 pitch through the middle and Atkins scored standing.
The Phillies were one strike away from securing rookie right-hander Kyle Kendrick’s fourth straight win when Antonio Alfonseca surrendered a solo home run to Brad Hawpe, his 15th, to tie it at 6. Hawpe’s 430-foot shot to dead center took Jeff Francis off the hook after his worst performance since April.
J.C. Romero got the first out of the ninth and Alfonseca, who blew his third save in nine chances, got Atkins on a flyout to left before Hawpe sent a 1-2 fastball into the rock pile, his third of four hits. He added a single in the 11th.
Durbin fell to 0-2 with the Phillies, who acquired him off waivers from Boston in April.
Manny Corpas (3-2) pitched a scoreless inning for the win, and he can thank first baseman Todd Helton, who made two spectacular plays. The first was a dive to his right to rob Shane Victorino of a single and the second was a backhanded stab of Chase Utley’s sharp one-hopper down the line that would have gone for extra bases.
The Rockies pulled to .500 (43-43) by winning their fourth in a row and their seventh straight at Coors Field. Colorado improved to 13-2 at home since June 2.
Kendrick has been spectacular since his promotion from Double-A Reading last month to replace injured right-hander Freddy Garcia in the rotation. He allowed three runs and 10 hits in six innings, walked one and struck out two.
By the second inning, all of the Phillies’ position players had a hit and by the fifth they had a 6-1 lead. But Colorado chipped away and pulled to 6-5 on Cory Sullivan’s two-run single, Matt Holliday’s 15th homer and Ryan Spilborghs’ sacrifice fly.
Francis surrendered six hits in the first inning – more than he had allowed in eight of his starts this season – and the Phillies took a 3-0 lead on Chase Utley’s RBI single and a two-run single by Pat Burrell.
Ryan Howard poked a run-scoring single to left in the second inning to make it 4-0. However, he was thrown out trying to score on Aaron Rowand’s second of three doubles to center.
After the Rockies got a run back in the bottom half on Yorvit Torrealba’s groundout, Philadelphia went ahead 6-1 in the fifth on Wes Helms’ two-run double.
Sullivan’s two-run single cut the Rockies’ deficit to 6-3 in the sixth, and Holliday made it 6-4 when he greeted reliever Michael Zagurski with his 15th homer, a 460-foot shot into the rock pile in center field in the seventh.
In the eighth, Torrealba led off with a double and later scored on Spilborghs’ sacrifice fly to make it 6-5. With two men on and one out, Philadelphia manager Charlie Manuel decided to leave Mesa in the game to face Holliday, whom he induced into an inning-ending double play.
Francis, who had been 7-1 with a 2.28 ERA over his previous 11 starts, allowed six runs and 12 hits in five innings. Half of the hits off him were doubles.
Notes: Sullivan, who replaced Willy Taveras in center field in the sixth, had three singles and a walk in four trips to the plate. … This was the first meeting between the teams since April 27, 2006, a span of 434 days, the longest in Rockies history without facing an NL opponent.
