Atkins' homers keep Rockies in NL West hunt

D-backs win keeps Rockies six games back

By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published August 29, 2008 at 11:17 p.m.

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Lenny Ignelzi © AP

Colorado Garrett Atkins high-fives with teammate Clint Barmes, left, and coach Alan Cockrell after hitting a three-run homer in the third inning of Friday night's game against San Diego.

The Key . . .

MOMENT: After Clint Barmes led off the third inning with a single and went to second on third baseman Kevin Kouzmanoff’s throwing error, Willy Taveras doubled to drive in Barmes, and set the stage for Garett Atkins’ three-run home run. It was the 17th extra-base hit of the season in 429 at-bats for Taveras, who went into the game with a .306 slugging percentage, 158th out of 159 qualifying big-league players.

PLAYER: First baseman Atkins homered twice, a three-run home run gave the Rockies a 4-1 lead, and a two-run home run in the ninth for a 9-4 lead. It gave him 23 career RBI at Petco Park, second most in a visiting park to the 29 RBI he has at Chase Field in Arizona.

STAT: 16 wins for right-handed pitcher Aaron Cook, one shy of the club record. He is the fifth pitcher in franchise history to win 16 games, joining Kevin Ritz, Pedro Astacio and Jeff Francis, who each had 17 wins in a season, as well as Jason Jennings, who won 16 in 2002, his rookie season.

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SAN DIEGO — Petco Park is considered a pitcher's paradise.

Rockies first baseman Garrett Atkins, however, doesn't seem intimidated.

Atkins homered early to give the Rockies a lead and also homered late to finish off Colorado's 9-4 victory against the Padres on Friday night, helping Aaron Cook earn his 16th victory, one shy of the franchise's single- season record.

With their 10th win in their last 13 games overall, and the 14th win in their last 20 games on the road, the Rockies remained six games behind National League West-leading Arizona with 26 games to play, but did pull within 11/2 games of second-place Los Angeles, which lost the opening game of its three-game series at Arizona on Friday night.

A key to the Rockies' effort to overtake the Diamondbacks will be a late-season surge from Cook, who had been bothered in recent weeks with back spasms. That, however, said Cook, is history, and it certainly appeared so against the Padres, who he beat for the 11th time in 15 career decisions.

Cook won for the second time in five starts, working six innings for the first time in that stretch.

"I've worked hard to physically get back to where I need to be and I always feel a little better in San Diego," said Cook, 5-1 in six career starts at Petco Park. "You can get away with a few more mistakes here than you can in other parks."

Cook, however, has one advantage - he doesn't have to face Atkins. Atkins is oblivious to the complaints most hitters have at Petco, where he not only has a career .326 average but has hit five home runs and driven in 23 runs, second only to the 29 RBI he has at Chase Field in Arizona among visiting parks.

"He doesn't just hit the ball well here, but he hits it with power," manager Clint Hurdle said.

Power? He had hit only one home run in his previous 27 games, which included stops in such hitter-friendly environments as Coors Field, Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and Nationals Stadium in Washington, D.C.

He, however, came through in two crunch times for the Rockies.

After Willy Taveras had doubled home Clint Barmes to tie the score 1-1 in the top of the third, and Matt Holliday walked, Padres rookie Dirk Hayhurst struck out Brad Hawpe, but then threw a 1-1 pitch that Atkins deposited in the Western Metal Supply Co. balcony that serves as part of the left-field wall.

After Padres catcher Nick Hundley greeted reliever Manny Corpas with a home run leading off the seventh to cut the Rockies lead to 4-3, Seth Smith keyed a three-run eighth with a two-run pinch double. He's now 13-for-33 in his career as a pinch-hitter - 8-for-26 this year with eight RBI even though he has had only limited at-bats. He has started only three times since his July 3 call-up from Triple-A Colorado Springs. And he is 4-for-5 lifetime against San Diego, including 3-for-3 during the Rockies' September stretch drive a year ago.

"I just tell him what Rusty Staub told me," Hurdle said. "There's no pressure on a pinch hitter. You're going up because everyone else messed up, that had four or five chances and didn't get the job done. You get one chance."

And in the ninth, Atkins put the game away. With one out, Holliday extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a single and with two out, Atkins unloaded his 18th home run of the season.

The biggest lift for the Rockies, however, was to see All-Star right-hander Cook throwing with the 93-mph velocity and sinking action that are keys to his success. He pitched out of a first-inning jam when, with a runner on third and one out, he got Kevin Kouzmanoff to ground to short and struck out Adrian Gonzalez on a high fastball.

He gave up a run in the second when rookie Will Venable tripled and came home on a wild pitch. Kouzmanoff and Gonzalez got him in the third, combining for back-to-back two-out singles that brought home Brian Giles, who drew a one-out walk.

Cook, however, faced only 10 batters in getting his final nine outs of the game, and he was able to record 13 of his 18 outs on ground balls, getting strikeouts for three others.

"He showed a lot of improvement in all areas," Hurdle said. "He made a big step back in the right direction."

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