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Rockies look to gain ground in wild card race

Sep 7, 2007 - 2:15 PM San Diego (76-63) at Colorado (72-67) 9:05 pm EDT

DENVER (Ticker) - The Colorado Rockies look to stay in the playoff race as they host the wild card-leading San Diego Padres on Friday.

Colorado, which trails San Diego by four games in the wild card race, took two of three from the San Francisco Giants earlier this week.

If the Rockies are to stay in contention, they will have to do it with a patchwork rotation.

Starters Aaron Cook and Jason Hirsh are out for the season, so Colorado will rest its playoff hopes on the shoulders of ace Jeff Francis, Josh Fogg, rookies Ubaldo Jimenez and Franklin Morales, as well as Elmer Dessens.

Dessens (2-2, 7.39 ERA) makes his fourth start of the season, and is looking to bounce back from a terrible outing. On Saturday, the righthander allowed seven runs and six hits in 1 1/3 innings of a 13-7 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Meanwhile, San Diego trails Arizona (78-63) by one game in the National League West after being outscored, 18-7, in the final two games of a three-game series this week.

Justin Germano (7-8, 4.11) takes the hill looking to help the Padres get back on top of the NL West. The righthander has allowed three runs or less in each of his last six starts.

However, San Diego dropped Germano's last outing with a 5-0 loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sunday. He allowed a run and eight hits in six innings.