Colorado held to 2 hits by the bay

SAN FRANCISCO» Bud Black has repeatedly said the race for the National League West title is likely to come down to the final games of the season.

No, the Rockies manager doesn’t have a crystal ball, he just knows the reality of September baseball. He knows that even a foundering team like San Francisco is quite capable of beating a frontrunner, especially when a pitcher gets hot.

Such was the case Friday night at AT&T Park, where the firstplace Rockies (8166) lost 20 to the Giants and righthander Chris Stratton, who twirled a twohit complete game for the first shutout of his career. Colorado’s only hits were Ian Desmond’s lonely single in the second inning and an infield squibber by Charlie Blackmon in the sixth.

Meanwhile, the secondplace Dodgers (8167) certainly aren’t backing down in the fight for their sixth consecutive NL West title. They won at St. Louis for the second consecutive game, blanking the Cardinals 30 to creep within a half game of the Rockies. The two teams begin a crucial threegame series at Los Angeles on Monday.

Thirdplace Arizona (7870) also won Friday night, beating the Astros at Houston to move within 3K games of Colorado.

The Giants entered the game with an 11game losing streak, their worst stretch of baseball since they were the New York Giants playing in the Polo Grounds in 1951. But Stratton simply dominated the Rockies.

The closest they came to putting a run on the board was in the sixth when Blackmon reached on his infield hit and Nolan Arenado scorched a line drive toward the leftfield wall. But Gregor Blanco made a leaping catch as Arenado put his hands to his batting helmet in frustration.

Remember, this was the same Rockies offense that beat Arizona 103 on Thursday afternoon in Colorado while pounding out 16 hits. Wednesday night, the Rockies had 13 hits in a 54 win over the Diamondbacks, courtesy of DJ LeMahieu’s tworun, walkoff home run.

But chilly AT&T Park is not hotanddry Coors Field, and there were no latenight miracles