Diamondbacks See One Slip Away, 10-9

Todd Helton and Jeff Cirillo opened the bottom of the ninth inning with back-to-back homers, giving the Colorado Rockies a 10-9 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Tuesday night at Denver.

The Rockies committed four errors but erased deficits of 6-0 and 9-6 for an unlikely victory over the first-place Diamondbacks, who had 20-game winner Curt Schilling on the mound.

Byung-Hyun Kim (5-6) started the ninth for Arizona and Helton greeted him with his second homer of the game and 43rd of the season. Cirillo, who had three hits and three runs batted in, then hit a 2-2 pitch over the center-field fence as Kim blew his fourth save in 20 chances.

Helton, who set a career high for homers, went four for five. Mike Myers (2-3) pitched 1 1/3 scoreless innings for the victory.

The Diamondbacks, who had won seven of eight against Colorado, looked like they would overcome a shaky start by Schilling when Reggie Sanders followed an intentional walk with a three-run homer that give Arizona a 9-6 lead in the seventh.

Schilling was in position to win his 21st game but gave up six runs and 10 hits in five innings.

Philadelphia 4, Atlanta 3--Scott Rolen singled home the winning run off John Smoltz in the ninth inning at Philadelphia and the Phillies rallied past the Braves, tightening the NL East race.

Rolen, who homered twice off Greg Maddux in the Phillies’ 5-2 win Monday night, helped the Phillies pull within 11/2 games of the first-place Braves.

New York 7, Pittsburgh 5--Mike Piazza hit a two-run homer in the eighth inning and the Mets, wearing caps in tribute to New York’s firefighters, police and emergency rescue workers, defeated the Pirates at Pittsburgh.

The Mets wore the special hats Monday night for pregame ceremonies, then got permission from major league baseball to wear them for a game.

St. Louis 9, Milwaukee 4--Albert Pujols homered, doubled and drove in five runs, setting two team rookie records in the process, as the Cardinals defeated the Brewers at St. Louis.

Pujols hit a two-run double in the first, his 41st of the season, to break Joe Medwick’s franchise rookie record set in 1933. Pujols hit a three-run homer, his 35th, in the third, to give him 117 RBIs. That’s three more than Ray Jablonski had in 1953.

Cincinnati 6, Chicago 5--Brady Clark’s two-out, two-run single in the bottom of the ninth rallied the Reds over the Cubs at Cincinnati.

The Reds pulled off a rare home-field rally--they’re only 25-48 at Cinergy Field--off Kyle Farnsworth (4-5), who gave up Dmitri Young’s RBI single and Clark’s pinch-hit single with two outs.

Florida 3, Montreal 1--In front of the smallest Olympic Stadium crowd in 17 years, Preston Wilson homered twice as the Marlins defeated the Expos at Montreal. The announced crowd of 2,917 was Montreal’s smallest since drawing 2,803 for a weekday afternoon game against St. Louis on Sept. 27, 1984.

Expo right-hander Javier Vazquez, one of baseball’s best pitchers lately, will miss the rest of the season because of a broken eye socket after he was hit by a pitch in a game against the Florida Marlins. “That was the scariest thing that’s happened to me in all my life,” Vazquez said. ... Cub reliever Felix Heredia had an emergency appendectomy and was put on the 15-day disabled list. ... Nick Neugebauer, the Brewers’ top minor league pitching prospect, underwent surgery for a torn labrum and partially torn rotator cuff.