De La Rosa pitches 8 effective innings, lifting Rockies to 5-0 win over Diamondbacks

De La Rosa leads Rockies to 5-0 win over Arizona

DENVER — Jorge De La Rosa pitched eight innings, Ian Stewart hit a solo homer and the Colorado Rockies beat the slumping Arizona Diamondbacks 5-0 on Friday night.

The Rockies have won a season-best six straight at Coors Field, and moved to 24-9 overall since Jim Tracy replaced Clint Hurdle as manager.

De La Rosa (5-7), who has never had a complete game, won for the fifth time in six starts, allowing four hits and striking out six. The left-hander, known more as a strikeout pitcher, got 14 groundball outs.

De La Rosa’s biggest out of the game came when Gerardo Parra hit a slow roller to shortstop Troy Tulowitzki with two outs and the bases loaded in the sixth.

Colorado’s starting pitching has been so effective of late, the bullpen hasn’t received much work. Joel Peralta got two outs in the ninth, then gave way to Huston Street in a non-save situation. The bullpen has thrown one inning in the last three games.

Max Scherzer (5-6) allowed six hits over six innings as the Diamondbacks lost for the eighth time in nine games.

The Diamondbacks had three more errors, running their season total to a major league-leading 74.

It was almost a comedy of errors as Parra overthrew second on a play in the fifth, while Chris Young simply took his eyes off Stewart’s routine flyball in the sixth, the ball grazing his glove before landing in center field.

Later in the inning, Luke Carlin threw to second on Stewart’s steal attempt, only to find no one covering the bag. The ball bounced into center as Stewart took third. Carlin was originally credited with the error, but the official scorer later gave it to shortstop Augie Ojeda.

Stewart’s solo homer in the second inning was his 15th of the season. It also halted a 12-inning scoreless streak by Colorado.

The Rockies tacked on two runs in the fifth when Dexter Fowler dumped a hit into shallow left, easily scoring Chris Iannetta. Parra tried to throw out Fowler as he stretched the hit into a double, but overthrew second base and the ball skipped into foul territory along the first-base side.

Fowler got up and scampered home, sliding under the throw at the plate.

Todd Helton’s double in the fourth was the 492nd of his career. He’s closing in on becoming the 49th player in major league history to have 500.

The game was delayed 22 minutes after an afternoon thunderstorm rolled through town, dropping nearly a half-inch of rain on the field.

NOTES: Rockies reliever Manuel Corpas (right elbow bone spurs) played long toss Friday and will throw a 25-pitch bullpen session Saturday. … Arizona OF Eric Byrnes had the cast taken off his left hand Friday and is wearing a splint. Byrnes recently underwent surgery to repair a broken bone after being hit by a pitch.