A Snowball Effect for Colorado Hitters

It was cold, snowy and miserable Wednesday in Denver, unless you were a member of the Colorado Rockies, whose offense is radiating so much heat lately that they can certainly cope with the weather. The Rockies’ Ellis Burks homered twice and Andres Galarraga had four hits in a 13-4 victory over the Cincinnati Reds that increased the team’s winning streak to six.

Cincinnati pitcher Ricky Bones (0-1) started the game feeling poorly because of flu and ended his day feeling worse after lasting only four innings in his second National League start.

On an afternoon with light snow and a wind-chill near 6 degrees, every Colorado starting player had at least one hit, and the Rockies finished with 19 for the second game in a row.

“The weather hasn’t been worse than it was today,” Bones said. “When I was in Milwaukee, I never pitched in weather this bad. I didn’t feel very good. I had the flu, but I don’t want to use that as an excuse. It was cold and it made it tougher.”

Colorado starter Mark Thompson (2-0) was pitching well until he gave up consecutive homers to Barry Larkin, Willie Greene and Reggie Sanders in the sixth inning. It was the first time in six years that three consecutive Red batters homered.

“I was mad,” said Thompson, who pitched seven scoreless innings in Cincinnati last Thursday. “I was like, ‘This is ridiculous! I’ve been pitching well! How in the heck does this happen all the sudden?’ It’s still bothering me.”

The homers pulled Cincinnati within 8-3, and the Reds chased Thompson on an RBI single by Lenny Harris with one out in the seventh inning.

Jerry Dipoto struck out Larkin, and Mike Munoz retired Greene on a groundout, stranding runners at first and third.

“When they hit the three home runs, my philosophy changed,” Rocky Manager Don Baylor said. “We were just going to go ahead and try to score as many runs as we could, because they had some firepower.”

Burks, whose only two hits coming into the game had been homers, hit a solo homer off Stan Belinda in the seventh and a two-run shot off Scott Service in the eighth for the 13th multi-homer game of his career.

San Francisco 3, Philadelphia 0--Barry Bonds finally saw a pitch he liked and turned it into his first home run of the season at San Francisco.

Not surprisingly, it was the last good pitch he saw.

Bonds, who hit 42 homers last season, connected on a two-run shot off Bobby Munoz (0-2) in the first inning. Bonds’ homer was only the second punchless San Francisco has hit all season.

Bonds, batting third after hitting cleanup most of the season, later walked twice. He has been walked 12 times by pitchers working around him because he has so little help in the San Francisco lineup.

“I put Barry back to No. 3 because we were not scoring and I wanted to to do something,” San Francisco Manager Dusty Baker said. The Giants had only nine runs in their previous four games and hit a collective .177.

Jose Vizcaino singled ahead of Bonds’ drive, which cleared the center-field wall.

San Francisco added a run in the third when Jeff Kent and Glenallen Hill hit successive two-out doubles.

And as poor as the Giants’ hitting has been, Philadelphia’s has been worse.

The Phillies, who have started the season with a 3-6 record on their West Coast trip, have not scored more than three runs in a game. They have been shut out twice in nine games and scored one or fewer runs in five.

Giant starter Kirk Rueter (1-0) gave up four hits in seven innings.Doug Henry pitched a scoreless eighth inning and has retired 14 batters in a row and 19 of 21 in his last four outings. Rod Beck finished the five-hitter for his major league-leading fifth save.

Atlanta 4, Houston 3--Rookie Tom Martin walked Fred McGriff on four pitches with the bases loaded in the 12th inning to extend the Braves’ winning streak to six games and keep them undefeated (5-0) at Turner Field.

Jeff Blauser singled off Jose Lima (0-1) to lead off the 12th. Andruw Jones then sacrificed and Kenny Lofton was intentionally walked. Chipper Jones walked one out later and Martin came in to face McGriff.

Alan Embree (1-0) pitched a perfect 12th for the Braves, who overcame a 3-1 deficit.

Atlanta starter Denny Neagle gave up three runs and eight hits in 5 1/3 innings. Houston’s Darryl Kile allowed three runs and six hits in eight innings.

Blauser’s streak of consecutive hits ended at eight in the third inning, when he flied out to left on Kile’s first pitch. The NL record for consecutive hits is 10--a feat last accomplished by Bip Roberts of Cincinnati in 1992.

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BESTS OF THE DAY

BATTING

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Team’s Player Team Performance Result Barry Bonds San Francisco 2-run homer, his first of season Win Ellis Burks Colorado 2 homers, 3 RBIs Win Andres Galarraga Colorado 4 for 5, HR, 3 RBIs Win

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PITCHING

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Team’s Player Team Performance Result Kirk Reuter San Francisco 7 innings, 4 hits, 0 runs Win Chan Ho Park Dodgers 7 innings, 2 hits, 1 run --- Esteban Loaiza Pittsburgh 7 1/3 innings, 5 hits, 1 run Win

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