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Rockies pound another Red Sox ace; win fourth straight series

Jun 15, 2007 - 4:35 AM BOSTON (Ticker) -- After being baffled by a knuckleballer in the series opener, the Colorado Rockies made short work of the best pitchers the Red Sox had to offer.

Garrett Atkins hit a grand slam and Jeff Francis tied a season high with six strikeouts as the Rockies handed pitcher Josh Beckett his first loss of the season and posted a 7-1 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Thursday.

After sending ace Curt Schilling to the showers after just five innings on Wednesday, Colorado made relatively quick work against the previously untouchable Beckett (9-1).

With a 1-0 lead in the third, Kaz Matsui, Matt Holliday and Todd Helton reached base consecutively with two hits and a walk before Atkins crushed a 3-1 high outside fastball over the "Green Monster" for his fourth career grand slam.

"He threw me a couple of good pitches early," Atkins said. "But a (close) call went my way. I got the count in my favor, got a fastball, and didn't miss it. It feels good."

Following a slow start to the season, Atkins has picked it up in June, batting .333 (13-for-39) with two homers and eight RBI in 11 contests after hitting just .223 with three home runs and 20 RBI through 51 games in April and May.

"The first two months are over with, you can't do anything about them now," Atkins said. "But I know I'm a good hitter who just had a few bad months of swings. We have four months to go and I need to just keep getting better."

Francis (6-5), who had been given just 35 runs of support in his 13 starts, clearly benefited from the uncharacteristic six-run surge, yielding seven hits and walking two in five-plus innings, helping Colorado reach .500 (33-33) for the first time since they were 5-5 on April 13.

The lefthander was pulled after 103 pitches and allowing consecutive singles to Jason Varitek and Coco Crisp to open the sixth.

"I think I had a good night, but I struggled to locate my fastball, Francis said. "I was better with men on base. I got ahead of hitters better in those situations. I got myself out of trouble, the bullpen helped pick me up and we scored lots of runs."

It marked the first time in nine outings Francis failed to toss at least seven innings although he improved to 5-1 with a 1.93 ERA over his last eight starts.

Holliday also homered for the Rockies, who won their fourth consecutive road series for just the second time in franchise history.

Beckett surrendered season highs of six runs and 10 hits over just five innings for the Red Sox, who are just 5-9 over their last 14 games. In his 11 previous starts, the righthander had allowed no more than four earned runs in any outing.

"I thought I had pretty good stuff," Beckett said. "It's about making those pitches when you need to, in those crucial counts."

Manny Ramirez, Mike Lowell and Varitek each tallied two hits for Boston, which has dropped as many games in 13 June games (8) as it had lost in either of the first two months.