Colorado Rockies manager Walt Weiss watched Troy Tulowitzki just miss a couple of pitches against Arizona on Saturday night and knew his star player would connect with one soon.
He did a day later, setting the tone for a much-needed victory in the desert.
Tulowitzki hit a three-run homer in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to 18 games, Jorge De La Rosa pitched six effective innings and the Colorado Rockies beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-4 on Sunday to avoid a four-game sweep.
"He's taking some good passes at the ball, we're seeing his 'A' swing more consistently," Weiss said of Tulowitzki. "He looks like he's ready to roll."
Tulowitzki homered in Colorado's four-run first inning against Rubby De La Rosa (6-4) and Carlos González added a two-run homer off the right-hander in the sixth.
González had three of Colorado's 11 hits and made a diving catch in right field with the tying run on in the ninth to help the Rockies end a four-game losing streak.
Jorge De La Rosa (6-3) had six strikeouts to surpass 1,000 (1,005) for his career and allowed two runs and five hits to win at Chase Field for the first time in 10 tries.
"I finally get my first win here; everybody was telling me about it," said De La Rosa, who was 0-7 in nine previous starts at Chase. "It felt good to finally get my first win here."
It wasn't easy.
Yasmany Tomas kept the Diamondbacks in it, homering among his three hits and driving in three runs.
Arizona had a pair of singles to put the tying run on in the ninth, but González made his diving catch and John Axford struck out newly named All-Star Paul Goldschmidt with two on for his 14th save.
"We had the go-ahead run at the plate and the guy we wanted up there. That is all you can hope for," Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale said. "They won the battle today."
A pair of De La Rosas met for the first time in major league history 11 days earlier in Denver. Rubby allowed a run in seven innings, Jorge a run in five innings and neither factored in the decision of a 6-4 win by the Rockies.
Rubby De La Rosa had pitched well over his previous five starts, going 2-0 with a 1.30 ERA.
He got off to a rough start against the Rockies, giving up six straight hits. Tulowitzki hit the first pitch he saw deep in the seats in left for a three-run homer and Ben Paulsen added a run-scoring single to put Colorado up 4-0 before Jorge De La Rosa even took the mound.
Rubby De La Rosa retired 14 straight batters after that, but Gonzalez put the Rockies up 6-1 with a two-run homer in the sixth inning. He allowed six runs and eight hits in five innings.
"I tried to limit the damage," De La Rosa said. "Everything was up."
Jorge De La Rosa has pitched well recently, too, going 5-1 with a 2.96 ERA since May 21. He was good again, giving up a solo homer to Tomas on the first pitch of the second inning and sacrifice fly to the Cuban slugger in the sixth.
De La Rosa has been dealing with a cut finger and it started bothering him in the fifth, so Weiss took him out after 95 pitches.
"In the fifth inning, it was swelling a little bit, but I was able to continue pitching," De La Rosa said.