Rueter Slows Pace of Rockies’ Offense

It was San Francisco’s Kirk Rueter on the mound, but it might just as well have been Tom Glavine or Denny Neagle or any other soft thrower.

Rueter, teasing Colorado with off-speed pitches, frustrated the Rockies, who had only six hits in his eight-plus innings in the Giants’ 6-3 victory Friday night.

“I think he took a page out of Tom Glavine’s book on how to pitch in this ballpark,” Rocky Manager Don Baylor said. “He kept us off-balance all night. We didn’t make the adjustments, such as hitting the other way. We made some very weak outs.”

Rueter (5-2) had some help as J.T. Snow, Barry Bonds and Jose Vizcaino all homered. He won for the third consecutive outing, helping the Giants push their lead over Colorado in the NL West to 4 1/2 games. Snow had two hits and two RBIs, and Vizcaino, Darryl Hamilton and Stan Javier also had two hits.

Colorado rookie Neifi Perez hit a two-run homer, his second, forcing Rueter from the game with no outs in the ninth. Rod Beck finished for his major league-leading 26th save.

Colorado’s Larry Walker went one for four, dropping his major league-leading average to .406.

After John Thomson (2-5) retired the first five Giants, including two strikeouts to open the second inning, Snow hit his seventh homer, a 431-foot shot to left field.

The Giants scored again with two outs in the third when Hamilton, Vizcaino and Javier had consecutive singles.

San Francisco made it 3-0 in the sixth when Javier led off with a single, went to second on a groundout and, once again with two outs, scored on Snow’s single to right-center.

“Snow was like a thorn in my side all night,” Thomson said. “I got a fastball up on the homer and a changeup up on the single. Those are mistakes, and I paid for them.”

Rueter gave up leadoff singles in the second, third and fifth innings but worked out of each jam, helped by a double play in the fifth.