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Myers stays perfect as Phillies dump Rockies

Apr 12, 2009 - 4:40 AM DENVER (AP) -- Brett Myers remained perfect at Coors Field with an imperfect outing Saturday night.

Myers allowed three home runs in the Philadelphia Phillies' 8-4 win over the Colorado Rockies, improving to 5-0 at Coors Field and 7-0 in eight career appearances against the Rockies.

He wasn't exactly thrilled, though.

"Probably middle of the season I make those mistakes and they pop them up," Myers said. "I don't know what the heck's going on right now but every mistake I make is going over the fence. "

The right-hander allowed four runs and four hits, including homers by Troy Tulowitzki, Garrett Atkins and Clint Barmes. He struck out six and walked one as the defending World Series champions won for the second time in five games.

Myers (1-1) also allowed three homers in his first start, a 4-1 loss to Atlanta in the majors' first game of the season. This time all those souvenirs in the bleachers hardly mattered because the Phillies pounded Colorado's pitching for 15 hits and rallied for seven two-out runs.

Of the dozen hits Myers has allowed so far, half of them are home runs, and all eight runs he's given up have scored via the long ball.

"I just want to be able to make a mistake and get away with one. That's it, just one, and I'll feel a lot better about it," Myers said. "Right now it's not happening. We won, that's all that matters.

"I felt good. Same thing with the Braves game, make a couple of mistakes and they're hitting them. Nothing really you can do about it, except don't make mistakes, but that's going to happen over the course of a game."

Barmes suggested Myers was being too hard on himself.

"He only made three mistakes, and I don't even know if they were really that bad of pitches," Barmes said. "And so, it was tough to get anything rolling tonight."

At least this time, the Phillies' hitters had Myers' back.

Ryan Howard broke out of his hitting funk with a three-run double, Jayson Werth's two-run triple off reliever Ryan Speier broke a 3-3 tie in the fifth and Raul Ibanez went deep in the seventh for Philadelphia.

"It definitely felt good to have those hits, especially with two outs," Howard said. "That makes all the difference in the game when you can get big two-out hits. It can change the flow."

After being struck in neutral all week, the Phillies' lineup finally resembled the one that rolled to the title last fall.

"That's more of what we're accustomed to," Werth said. "Not that we're going to hit like that every night."

Jorge De La Rosa (0-1) struggled through 4 2-3 innings, allowing five runs, all with two outs, and six hits.

"I threw a lot of pitches in a little bit of innings," said De La Rosa, who threw 99 pitches. "I was behind in the count and I paid for it."

Tulowitzki gave the Rockies a 2-0 lead in the second inning when he followed Brad Hawpe's double with a shot into the rock pile beyond the center-field wall.

Howard broke out of his 3-for-17 funk with his three-run double an inning later. Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino hit two-out singles and Chase Utley drew a walk before Howard sent De La Rosa's first pitch into the alley in left-center, giving the Phillies a 3-2 lead.

"We've been kind of slow getting runs, myself especially," Howard said. "But to be able to get that hit to get us going, to get us jump-started, it was a good thing."

Atkins tied it at 3 in the fourth with his second homer in as many games.

De La Rosa ran into trouble again in the fifth when Utley and Howard hit back-to-back singles with two outs, bringing in Speier, who served up Werth's triple into the right-field corner.

Barmes led off the bottom half with his first homer, but Myers retired the next nine batters he faced before giving way to Ryan Madson, who pitched a perfect eighth. Brad Lidge followed with a 1-2-3 ninth after Philadelphia tacked on another run off Huston Street in the top half.

Jason Hammel, acquired from Tampa Bay on Sunday for minor league pitcher Anuery Rodriguez, had a shaky debut for the Rockies, allowing two runs and five hits in 2 2-3 innings.

Notes: The Phillies placed C Carlos Ruiz on the 15-day disabled list with a strained right oblique muscle and called up C Lou Marson from Triple-A Lehigh Valley. ... The Rockies have homered in all five of their games.