Greene’s Homers Lift the Padres, 8-7

Khalil Greene hit two home runs, including the game-winning solo shot in the ninth inning, to lift the San Diego Padres back past the .500 mark with an 8-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Monday night at Denver.

Greene hit a 1-and-0 pitch off closer Brian Fuentes (2-4) to left-center to help San Diego pull one out in the late innings for the third straight game and improve to 75-74. They moved six games ahead of San Francisco and eight games ahead of the Dodgers in the NL West.

“I think these are the kind of games that you see in the playoffs,” Greene said. “And the teams there have an ability to come from behind and win games. You have to be able to do that to compete. We weren’t doing that at one point, but we are having some success at it again.”

Scott Linebrink (8-1) threw two scoreless innings to pick up the win. Trevor Hoffman pitched the ninth for his 39th save.

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Pittsburgh 7, Houston 0 -- A mismatch between 340-game winner Roger Clemens and zero-game winner Ian Snell turned out to be exactly that. Only not the way most expected.

Snell limited the Astros to three singles over eight innings at Pittsburgh for his first victory.

The Pirates’ fifth victory in six games ended Houston’s five-game winning streak and reduced the Astros’ lead over Philadelphia to one game in the NL wild-card race.

It was the ninth shutout loss in an Astro game started by Clemens (12-8) this season. Until this season, no pitcher had been shut out as many as eight times in a season since San Diego’s Randy Jones in 1978.