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Francis, Holliday dazzle as Rockies beat Yankees

Jun 21, 2007 - 5:10 AM DENVER (Ticker) -- For the second straight game, the Colorado Rockies' pitching staff kept the New York Yankees' high-power offense silent.

Jeff Francis tossed seven solid innings and Matt Holliday delivered the go-ahead homer as the Rockies posted a 6-1 triumph over the Yankees on Wednesday night.

In Tuesday's series opener, starter Josh Fogg and three relievers limited the Yankees to just one run and seven hits for one of their lowest offensive outputs this season.

Francis (7-5) yielded one run and five hits with a career-high nine strikeouts and one walk en route to winning his sixth start in eight outings.

"Foggy did a good job, like I did tonight, of just picking your spots to go after guys," Francis said. "We've done a really good job pitching. It's probably two of our best games of the year. I don't think it's a coincidence."

The 26-year-old lefthander, who was making his first career appearance against New York, improved to a commanding 35-8 record when the Rockies provide him with at least three runs.

"I had more fun I think than I've ever had pitching," Francis said. "The full crowd, everybody's into it like no game I've ever seen. Going against Andy (Pettitte), we battled it out and fortunately we came out on top."

Francis kept the Yankees off the board until the sixth, when Melky Cabrera doubled to center and came around on Derek Jeter's run-scoring double down the third base line for a 1-0 edge.

However, the Rockies returned the favor in the bottom half as Holliday crushed the first offering from Pettitte (4-5) to left field for two-run homer to take a 2-1 lead. The blast measured 442 feet. It was Holliday's 13th homer of the season and second in three games.

"There's nothing like the feeling of hitting a ball on the sweet spot in a big situation," Holliday said. "I was just looking for something to hit. He gave me a hard time my first two at-bats, and I was just looking for something out over the plate. From the first pitch, I wanted to be ready to hit in case he made a mistake. I think it was a changeup that he left inside."

"When I saw the ball cutting in there, I knew that he was probably going to hit it hard," Pettitte said. "The frustration comes in when I got a 1-0 lead and the guy hits a two-run homer and now we're losing. I could care less how far the guy hit it."

Colorado had a chance to add more damage in the frame, when Garrett Atkins laced a single to bring around Todd Helton, who was thrown out at the plate by left fielder Hideki Matsui.

The Rockies added three runs in the next frame as Willy Taveras hit an RBI single and Kaz Matsui added a two-run triple to chase Pettitte. Holliday also delivered a run-scoring single to make it 6-1.

Colorado is 8-0-1 in its last nine series.

"Any time we establish a club record, that's a big step," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "Obviously winning a series was a difficult challenge for us early. One of the biggest challenges for this club to take a big step forward was for guys not to let their confidence be shaken by results on a nightly or daily basis."

New York has scored just two runs in the first two games of the series.

"We're not hitting. You don't want to take anything away from Jeff Francis because he's certainly kept us off-balance but we're not swinging the bats like we're capable," Yankees manager Joe Torre said.

Pettitte was tagged for six runs and nine hits with four strikeouts, failing to record back-to-back wins for the first time this campaign. Jeter singled in the first to extend his hitting streak to 14 games.