Diamondbacks 6 - 7 Rockies
Final
  for this game

Young hurlers square off in Colorado

Sep 18, 2014 - 2:49 PM (SportsNetwork.com) - If you're a pitcher on a last-place team, chances are that you'll struggle for wins now and then.

Rookies Vidal Nuno and Yohan Flande for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies will get their next chances at first National League victories of the season on Thursday night when the Diamondbacks visit the Rockies to open a four-game series at Coors Field.

Arizona leads Colorado by a single game in the lower tier of the NL's West Division, which means they're a game better than the Rockies in the quest to not end the season with the league's worst record.

Nuno arrived from the New York Yankees in early July after winning two of seven decisions across 17 appearances with a 5.42 earned run average. He's made 12 subsequent starts for the Diamondbacks and has seen the ERA trimmed to 3.68, but is 0-6 in those decisions.

In nine of his 12 games with Arizona, he's received two or fewer runs.

Still, the Diamondbacks scored five times in his last start on Friday against San Diego, but he was touched for six in five innings of a 6-5 loss.

"Trying to do too much at times and overthinking," Nuno said. "It is annoying that I got some run support today and that I blew it a little bit.''

The Rockies enter the series after scoring 26 runs and racking up 30 hits in two straight wins to close a series with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

They'd started the series with an 11-3 loss, which was their seventh in a row and had seen them score just 11 times.

Arizona has won four straight against Colorado while scoring 37 runs.

Nuno went eight innings against the Rockies on Aug. 30, but was beaten, 2-0.

He's faced by Yohan Flande, who's starting for the ninth time overall and the first time in more than a month.

In five relief outings this month, he's thrown 4 1/3 scoreless innings.

Flande has never faced the Diamondbacks.

On Wednesday in Arizona, Matt Duffy's pinch-hit single in the ninth inning lifted the San Francisco Giants to a 4-2 win over the Diamondbacks in the rubber match of a three-game series.

Pablo Sandoval walked to begin the ninth off Addison Reed (1-6), Brandon Crawford singled two batters later and Brandon Belt followed with a walk that loaded the bases. A pinch-hitting Duffy then lined a 3-2 pitch right back up the box that scored Sandoval and Crawford for a 4-2 advantage.

In Colorado, the Rockies scored eight runs on 11 hits -- and that was just the first inning of what ultimately became a 16-2 win in the finale of a three- game series.

Colorado knocked around Dodgers starter Carlos Frias for 10 of those hits. Justin Morneau teed off on a Frias fastball for a three-run homer and tied a franchise record with five RBI in the inning. Morneau had three hits and six RBI -- he was a triple shy of the cycle.

Jorge De La Rosa (14-11) gave up two hits in six scoreless innings to snap a four-start winless streak.

Arizona is 9-6 against the Rockies this season.






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