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Rockies top Cardials for seventh straight win

May 30, 2007 - 5:54 AM DENVER (Ticker) -- The Colorado Rockies may play their games a mile high, but right now they are in seventh heaven.

Yorvit Torrealba hit his first home run of the season - a grand slam - to lead the Rockies to an 8-3 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday.

Brad Hawpe hit a two-run homer for Colorado, which has has won seven straight games for the first time since September 1998.

Torrealba's home run snapped a home run drought of 108 at-bats dating back to his last homer on Sept. 5, 2006 at San Diego.

"It felt great. Any time a team has a winning streak, everyone has to be part of it," Torrealba said. "Hopefully we can continue it and play good ball."

"It's been a good stretch both personally and as a team, it's just we have to keep plugging along," Hawpe said. "We just hope it keeps going and at the end of the year we look up and we are where we want to be."

Activated from the disabled list before the game, Colorado starter Rodrigo Lopez allowed three runs and six hits while striking out seven in six innings. Lopez (2-0) had been out since April 19 with right elbow inflammation.

"I was trying to get a win of course but I was trying to do my job," Lopez said. "I think we had a good stretch at this time of the season and I was just trying to join the team and fit in again."

"He was very effective. Kind of picked up where he left off," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "It was obviously a big first step back for him."

Jorge Julio, Jeremy Affeldt and Tom Martin each pitched a scoreless inning in relief of Lopez to close out the game. They combined to allow one hit, by Martin in the ninth, in another strong performance by the Colorado bullpen.

During the Rockies' current winning streak, the bullpen has been nearly unhittable, boasting an ERA of 0.59 while opposing batters are hitting just .163.

It is a stark turnaround from the beginning of the season as Rockies' relievers were allowing opponents to hit .299 and had an ERA of 5.58 over the season's first 45 games.

"The starting pitching has been extremely good, the bullpen is starting to mix and match very well and very effective," Hurdle said.

While Lopez was solid, St. Louis starter Braden Looper was his own worst enemy. Looper walked the bases loaded to start the fourth and Torrealba made him pay, lofting a 2-2 pitch over the fence in left-center for his third career grand slam.

"For some reason I just couldn't make the adjustment tonight," Looper said. "You can't walk the first three guys of any inning ever and expect to be successful so that was pretty pathetic."

Looper (6-4) yielded six runs and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings. He also walked five.

"They hit better, they pitched better, managed better, we were just outplayed," Cardinals manager Tony LaRussa said.

Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen each hit solo shots for St. Louis, which has lost seven consecutive road games.