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Rockies-Diamondbacks Preview

Sep 20, 2009 - 5:17 AM By JEFF MEZYDLO STATS Senior Writer

Colorado (83-65) at Arizona (65-83), 4:10 p.m. EDT

The Colorado Rockies are in position to salvage something on a rough road trip. Facing Arizona's Dan Haren, however, might not make doing so that easy.

The wild-card leading Rockies look for a second straight victory to win their three-game series with the last-place Diamondbacks on Sunday.

Troy Tulowitzki homered for a career-best fourth game in a row and Jason Giambi hit his first for the Rockies (84-56), who won 10-4 at Arizona on Saturday to improve to 3-5 on a nine-game road trip that started with series losses at both San Diego and San Francisco.

Despite their recent struggles, the Rockies have a 3 1/2-game lead over the Giants and are four up on Florida in the wild-card standings. After this contest, Colorado returns for its final homestand against the Padres, St. Louis and Milwaukee before closing the season with three games at NL West-leading Los Angeles.

"It's awesome. It's what you dream about," said Giambi, who's 4 for 11 with nine RBIs in 11 games with Colorado. "I keep telling people when I decided to come over here that this is the fun part of the game, to have something to play for in September."

After averaging 3.0 runs in its previous seven contests, Colorado had nine hits and scored five times in the ninth Saturday.

Tulowitzki, who has a team-leading and career-high 29 homers, is batting .379 with five home runs and six RBIs on the trip. The veteran shortstop, however is hitting .167 with two home runs and 11 strikeouts against Haren (14-8, 2.79 ERA), who's usually been tough on the Rockies.

Haren, two wins away from matching his career high from last year, is 5-3 with a 2.86 ERA in 10 starts against Colorado and 2-1 with a 1.38 ERA in four this season.

He's 1-1 at home versus the Rockies this year despite allowing one run and striking out 18 in 14 innings.

The right-hander, who turned 29 on Thursday, gave up two runs in eight innings of a 4-2 victory at San Diego on Tuesday to improve to 2-0 in five starts since losing at Philadelphia on Aug. 19.

Colorado counters with Ubaldo Jimenez (13-11, 3.55), who hopes to bounce back after allowing seven runs in a season-low 2 2-3 innings of a 10-2 loss at San Francisco on Tuesday.

The right-hander had not allowed more than three runs in his previous 12 starts.

"The only thing I can do is learn from it, forget about it and get ready for the next time," Jimenez told the Rockies' official Web site. "There's nothing else I can do."

Jimenez is 1-2 with a 2.98 ERA in seven starts against Arizona and 1-1 with a 3.26 ERA in three this season.

Justin Upton is 0 for 9 with five strikeouts against Jimenez, but hit a three-run homer Saturday for the Diamondbacks (65-84), who lost for the second time in five games after dropping nine of 10.

Upton is batting .308, and 7 for 11 in his last three games.

Arizona's Mark Reynolds has 42 home runs, but struck out twice Saturday to give him 202 for the season - two shy of the major league record he set last year.