Rockies interrupt Brewers happy hour

Brewers' giddiness over Sabathia gets spilled by Jimenez

By Tracy Ringolsby, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 7, 2008 at 9:02 p.m.

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Matt Holliday launches a solo home run in the seventh inning Monday night against the Brewers, his 14th of the season.

Photo by Jeff Hanisch © AP

Rockies starting pitching Ubaldo Jimenez delivers a pitching during the first inning of the Rockies-Brewers game on Monday night in Milwaukee. Jimenez threw seven shutout innings as he struck out seven and allowed three hits, all singles, while also walking five.

MILWAUKEE — CC Sabathia was the main attraction at Miller Park on Monday evening, even though he won't make his Brewers debut until tonight. Just a glimpse of him on the scoreboard brought an ovation from the local fans.

Rockies right-hander Ubaldo Jimenez was the afterthought.

But he gave the Brewers plenty to think about.

Jimenez worked seven shutout innings and the Rockies held on for a 4-3 victory against the Brewers, allowing Jimenez to enjoy his first victory of the season on the road and providing the Rockies a much-needed victory in the opening game of a seven-game journey leading to the All-Star break.

"This was real big, especially with CC and (Ben) Sheets coming up (tonight and Wednesday)," said Matt Holliday, who extended his hitting streak to 11 games with a run-scoring single in the fifth and a leadoff home run in the seventh. "We've played pretty well at home, but we have to play better on the road."

Jimenez was as good as anyone to try to get the turnaround started for a team that not only had lost 26 of its past 31 road games but came home winless from an 0-6 journey to Kansas City and Detroit the last time it left home.

Jimenez has been a seasonlong study in road futility.

Until Monday night, that is.

Until he overcame command issues in the first two innings, when he walked four, and settled down to pitch seven innings on the road for the first time in 17 career road starts in the majors, limiting the Brewers to three hits and issuing only one walk in his final five innings.

He even picked off two runners, which was two more than in any other game he had pitched in the past two years.

"I was confident I was going to pitch well, but I didn't know if I was going to win it," Jimenez said.

Now he knows.

Not that it was easy.

He left with a 4-0 lead, thanks, in part, to the continuation of the resurgence of Holliday, who has a hit in 22 of his past 23 games, going 37-for-87 and raising his average to .345.

"This is as good as I have felt all season," Holliday said. "As a hitter, all you can do is go up there feeling good that you can do damage."

The Brewers did some damage in the bottom of the eighth, with a couple of assists from the Rockies infield, scoring three times off Taylor Buchholz, a Prince Fielder two-run home run the final blow.

It started with first baseman Joe Koshansky booting a slow roller, then catcher Chris Iannetta and third baseman Garrett Atkins backed off a Craig Counsell pop-up that fell in front of home plate for what was ruled a single.

"That was poor defense," manager Clint Hurdle said. "It was something that shouldn't happen at this level. No excuses. The balls need to be caught."

Closer Brian Fuentes left nothing to chance in the ninth. He struck out Bill Hall and Jason Kendall and got a flyball out from Gabe Kapler to finish the win and chalk up his 14th save of the season.

"That's as big a save as he has had all year," Hurdle said. "With that eighth-inning situation, the game swinging, and he comes out and goes 1-2-3."

No big deal, Fuentes said.

"It is important that we won," he said. "It's important that I did the job. But I feel that's the way it should be every game. We've been picking up games at home and struggling on the road. This might be a start of something better."

It certainly was a lot better for Jimenez, who had a 6.96 ERA in his first nine road starts this season, beating the Brewers at their own game - overpowering them with fastballs.

"Before the game, (pitching coach Bob Apodaca), Yorvit (Torrealba) and Iannetta and I talked that they were an aggressive fastball-hitting team, but I have to go at them with my fastball and hit my locations, and then, when they start to look for the fastball, throwing them a breaking pitch," Jimenez said. "I have to trust my fastball."

And there is reason to do that.

"His fastball is a special pitch," Fuentes said. "(In the seventh), he's 2-0 to Mike Cameron, a good fastball hitter who is sitting on the heater in that situation, and Ubaldo threw it by him. That shows you, Ubaldo has great stuff."

• July 7, 2008

  10:29 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  platoro79 writes:

  Nice game Ubaldo---keep it up!

• July 8, 2008

  8:16 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Diff writes:

  Go Rockies!
  Are we setting up for another exciting season ending?
  Only 6.5 games out!
  -but no team in the division is above .500 . . .

  The bigger question is if any team in the NL West can be a real deal come the play-offs?

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