Padres lose, Giants gain ground
The National League West is a pretty tight division, and it got a bit tighter after last night.
The Colorado Rockies, making their annual late season charge, beat the first placed San Diego Padres 9-6 to close the gap between the two sides to just 2.5 games.
Troy Tulowitzki hit his third multi-homerun game in a little more than a week and tied a career high with seven RBIs on Wednesday night. The Colorado shortstop smashed his 10th and 11th and is now just one homerun short of hitting the most homeruns in a calendar month for 2010. If Tulowitzki does get to 12 homeruns for the month he will set the franchise record for homeruns in a month.
"The game's not that easy. I'm just hot right now. I'm continually trying to remind myself to enjoy this while it last. It's not going to last forever,” said Tulowitzki.
Despite Jorge De La Rosa giving up five runs – three came in the eighth inning - the Rockies were already in good position, scoring all nine of their runs in the first four innings. The win moves the Rockies just 2.5 games behind the Padres, but they will also have to overtake the San Francisco Giants, who they trail by two games.
The Giants moved to just 0.5 games behind the Padres after a 2-1 win over their close rivals the LA Dodgers.
Matt Cain outdueled the Dodgers’ Chad Billingsley to claim his 12th win of the season. Cain threw seven innings of shutout ball, lowering his ERA to 3.08.
Mike Fontenot delivered a two-out RBI single in the seventh inning and Pablo Sandoval drove in a run on a fielder’s choice, scoring Aubrey Huff.The Giants have allowed just four runs in their past five games but have won only three of them, failing to score runs in both of those losses.
"The slogan: Giants baseball, torture. Or whatever it is. It's the way we do things. It's good for these guys because you can't lose your concentration or focus out there when you're in games like this,” manager Bruce Bochy said.
The Padres will be feeling the pressure from both the Giants and Rockies, and with their schedule not getting any easier - a four game set at St Louis is followed by a trip to the Dodgers – San Diego could be finding themselves out of first place pretty soon.
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