This is becoming a broken record, but: the starting pitching of the Arizona Diamondbacks once again helped the team to a win -- their ninth of their last ten, including three of four against division rivals, the Colorado Rockies. Micah Owings got his first win of the season, going five decent innings allowing one run.
This time, however, the pitchers got a little help from the D-backs bats. Miguel Montero started things off with a three-run home run in the fourth inning and Kelly Johnson -- batting .346 over his last seven games -- had his own two-run bomb at the top of the ninth to break open a late close game.
Things were a little shaky in the seventh when the Rockies got two runs off D-backs reliever Esmerling Vasquez before getting himself out of the inning.
Arizona is now firmly in second place in the National League West, and, with the San Francisco Giants losing to the Florida Marlins earlier on Thursday afternoon and young star Buster Posey on Wednesday evening, are now only one-and-a-half games out of first place in the division and face a favorable path to taking the lead.
The Rockies, on the other hand, are on a downward spiral, dropping six of their last seven games and struggling to deal with the poor play of ace Ubaldo Jimenez (0-4, 5.44 ERA).
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