Herrera’s sac fly breaks 7th-inning tie as Rockies beat D-Backs 2-1 for 9th straight win

Rockies stretch winning streak to nine

DENVER — Pinch-hitter Jonathan Herrera’s sacrifice fly off Mike Hampton broke a seventh-inning tie and the Colorado Rockies rallied past the Arizona Diamondbacks 2-1 Saturday night for their ninth straight victory.

Rookie Matt Reynolds (1-0) picked up his first major league win by working one scoreless inning and the Rockies stayed 2½ games behind San Diego in the NL West race. The Padres beat San Francisco 1-0.

Diamondbacks right-hander Rodrigo Lopez cruised along until the seventh, when he gave up three straight hits, including Miguel Olivo’s RBI single that tied it at 1 and took Ubaldo Jimenez off the hook for a hard-luck loss.

Jimenez had allowed just one run over six stellar innings.

With Herrera coming up to pinch hit, Lopez (5-14) , who was aiming for his first victory since Aug 7, was replaced by lefty Mike Hampton, the 37-year-old lefty whose two years in Denver were marked by a big contract and lots of losses.

Herrera lofted a fly that center fielder Chris Young had to back up on, allowing Ryan Spilborghs to score from third with the go-ahead run.

Lopez had been awful since Aug. 1, allowing 53 hits in 36 1-3 innings and losing all four of his decisions. On this night, he allowed just two runs on seven hits in 6 1-3 innings, but that wasn’t enough.

Rafael Betancourt held the lead with a 1-2-3 eighth and Huston Street picked his 18th save in 22 chances. With one out and runners at first and second, Street struck out Gerardo Parra on high heat, then got pinch-hitter Ryan Church looking at strike three with the sellout crowd of 48,000-plus standing.

The Rockies didn’t have their usually potent lineup on this night.

Carlos Gonzalez’s 0-for-8 hiccup over the previous two games prompted his manager to give him a breather. Gonzalez had started to show signs of fatigue after a career-best 16-game hitting streak that put him in contention for the Triple Crown and the Rockies in the thick of the playoff race.

Jim Tracy said Gonzalez “bruised his (right) hand up a little bit” taking an awkward swing Thursday night, but he held him out mostly just to give him a break. Gonzalez is hitting .335 with 32 homers and 100 RBIs.

With CarGo getting a night off — until he played left field in the ninth — Troy Tulowitzki, who’s been on a power surge himself over the last week and a-half, moved up from the cleanup spot to the third spot in the order and he wasn’t his usual self.

Tulowitzki had hit .444 (16-for-36) over his previous nine games while collecting eight homers, 17 RBIs, 15 runs, five walks and a dozen extra-base hits.

On Saturday night, Tulowitzki was 0-for-4. He was caught looking at strike three in the sixth with a runner at second base and grounded into a double play in the eighth.

Gonzalez’s replacement in left field, Spilborghs, misplayed Tony Abreu’s fourth-inning drive into a double and he couldn’t catch up to Stephen Drew’s RBI double an inning later.

Jimenez stranded runners at third base in the third, fourth and fifth innings, but that last frame he didn’t escape unscathed. Brandon Allen walked, took second on Lopez’s single and scored on Drew’s double to the left field gap that just eluded Spilborghs’ running stab.

Notes: 1B Jason Giambi started in place of Todd Helton, who came in as a defensive replacement in the eighth. Giambi went 0-for-3. … The Rockies are 18-4 at Coors Field since July 29.