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Rockies walk the plank

Left-hander walks six in loss; Taveras aggravates injury

Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 15, 2007 at midnight

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SAN DIEGO - The Rockies postseason hopes were given another jolt Tuesday night.

Not only did Jeff Francis, the one constant in the Rockies rotation, stumble in an 8-0 loss to the San Diego Padres, but center fielder Willy Taveras likely ran his way onto the disabled list with a right quadriceps injury that has haunted him for six weeks.

The Rockies want to push aside Francis' struggle. The left-hander walked six, matching a career-high, and pitched only 4 1/3 innings, his shortest effort the season, snapping his franchise record winning streak at eight decisions.

It also was the Rockies' first loss in a game he has started since June 25.

Francis walked five batters in a six-run second inning during which the Padres had only three hits, including Kevin Kouzmanoff's leadoff home run.

"I'm not going to try and figure this one out," manager Clint Hurdle said of Francis' struggles.

Francis agreed.

"It's never easy (to forget about a bad game), but that's the approach I am going to take," he said.

Greg Maddux snapped his five-decision losing streak, claiming a victory for the first time in nine starts, dating to June 27.

He pitched 5 2/3 shutout innings despite giving up eight hits in helping the Padres extend a club record with their 11th home shutout of the season.

The loss denied the Rockies a chance to pick up ground on National League West-leading Arizona, a 14-5 loser at Florida.

The Rockies are five games out of first place with 44 games to play. They also slipped three games back of wild-card leader San Diego, which the Rockies play again tonight and Thursday before heading to Los Angeles for three weekend games.

Francis' struggles come in advance of rookie Ubaldo Jimenez's start tonight. Jimenez is looking to recover from back-to-back starts in which he allowed 15 runs (11 earned) in 6 2/3 innings.

And the Rockies are scrambling to find a starter for Saturday's game in Los Angeles.

Franklin Morales, currently with Triple-A Colorado Springs, is the in-house favorite over veteran left-hander Dan Serafini, also with the Sky Sox.

But general manager Dan O'Dowd has been talking about trade possibilities with Minnesota (Ramon Ortiz), Baltimore (Steve Trachsel), Oakland (Chad Gaudin) and Toronto (Josh Towers) and was re-examining reports on veteran David Wells, who has been designated for assignment by San Diego.

More concerning than Francis is the status of Taveras, whose speed at the top of the lineup creates a dynamic the Rockies had been missing.

Taveras, who originally strained the quadriceps during the Rockies' visit to Houston the final weekend of June, did not start Saturday and Sunday against the Cubs at Coors Field, then enjoyed an off day Monday before returning to the lineup.

He said he felt fine at the start of the game but aggravated the injury in the first inning, and it showed in the third.

With two out and Taveras on first, Matt Holliday lined a double into the right-field corner. Taveras had to be stopped at third on a play he normally would score on without drawing a throw.

He came out one inning later in favor of Cory Sullivan.

"We've tried a lot of different things," Hurdle said. "(Taveras) has tried hard to make it happen. We've tried hard to make it happen, but it hasn't happened. Now we need to try (putting him on the disabled list)."

The Padres won at the expense of Francis, who lost for the ninth time in his past 11 decisions against San Diego.

Kouzmanoff started the second off with a home run, then came Francis' control problems. He walked five of the next eight batters despite getting ahead of four of them.

After Kouzmanoff homered, Josh Bard battled back from a first-pitch strike to draw a walk and Geoff Blum turned a 1-2 count into a walk.

After Marcus Giles struck out and Maddux put down a sacrifice bunt, Brian Giles battled back from a 1-2 count to draw a walk to load the bases and Morgan Ensberg drew a full-count walk, forcing in a run.

Then came two-run singles by Mike Cameron and Kouzmanoff with a four-pitch walk to Khalil Greene in between.

"I was in the at-bats, but I was trying to be too fine," Francis said. "Instead of taking a step back I just tried to force the issue and it got worse."