• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Owings outstanding as Diamondbacks cruise past Rockies

Apr 5, 2008 - 2:52 AM By Brady Delander PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

DENVER (Ticker) -- During pregame revelry, the Colorado Rockies looked every bit like the defending National League champions, greeted by fireworks, a fly-over by fighter jets and an amped crowd. Things changed after the first pitch, however.

The Arizona Diamondbacks chewed up Colorado's pitching and shut down its offense for an 8-1 victory Friday afternoon in front of a sold-out crowd at Coors Field.

Arizona starter Micah Owings (1-0) put on a stellar performance in his first career start against the Rockies.

"We put some good at-bats together early," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said. "It was a good start and to some extent it took the crowd out of it, but Micah did a good job of that by himself. Whether it was up, down, in, out, he had great control."

The righthander allowed just two hits over 6-2/3 innings, retiring 17 consecutive batters after giving up a leadoff single to Colorado's Willy Taveras in the first inning. Owings struck out a career-best nine batters.

"I didn't think much about (strikeouts). Today the game plan was to aggressively go at guys," Owings said. "It was nice to put up that three-spot in the first."

Third baseman Mark Reynolds went 2-for-4 with a solo home run and a two-RBI double while eight other Diamondbacks, including Owings, recorded a hit.

Arizona chased Rockies starter Mark Redman (0-1) after 5 2/3 innings, raking the left hander for nine hits and five runs, four of those earned.

The suspense for the highly anticipated home opener faded quickly.

Arizona's Chris Snyder was the first of many to rip into Redman's pitches. The Diamondbacks' catcher delivered a bases-loaded line drive to center field, scoring Chris Young, before Reynolds drilled a two-run double that brought home Chris Burke and Eric Byrnes for a 3-0 advantage after the first.

As the Rockies bats' stayed silent, Arizona continued piling on more runs.

Reynolds' solo shot in the fifth made it 4-0. Orlando Hudson had a run-scoring single in the sixth inning and Justin Upton homered off Colorado reliever Matt Herges for a 6-0 advantage one frame later.

"We'd have obviously liked to play our best game," Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. "We just weren't clicking offensively, and we didn't play very well defensively.

"(Owings) was big with his fastball, just very aggressive with it."

The Rockies avoided their second consecutive shutout when veteran Todd Helton stirred the home crowd with a solo home run to deep right field in the bottom of the seventh off Owings. But that was the beginning and end of the good times for Colorado, which which set a regular-season attendance record with 49,233 fans on hand.

Rockies left fielder Matt Holliday, second in the voting for the 2007 National League's Most Valuable Player, struck out during each of his four at-bats - twice looking.

Also, second-year standout Troy Tulowitzki did not resemble the infield anchor he established himself as during his rookie season, recording a rare error at shortstop and turning another ordinary grounder into an adventure before getting the out.

For the Diamondbacks, Upton and Hudson recorded multiple hits - Upton with the home run and two singles and Hudson with an RBI single in the sixth and a run-scoring double in the eighth.