St. Louis Cardinals 4, Colorado Rockies 2: Rockies bats stifled by Cardinals starter Carlos Martinez

The Rockies did get their first series win at Coors Field against St. Louis, but a sweep was not in the cards.

Cardinals starting pitcher Carlos Martinez shut down the Rockies offense, allowing two runs on eight hits in 6⅓ innings, walking one and striking out four.

The eight hits Martinez allowed were scattered, as the Rockies had at least one hit in each of the seven innings in which he took the mound, but more than one only once, in the fifth when the rally was quashed on a double-play grounder off the bat of DJ LeMahieu.

St. Louis, on the other hand, bunched its hits against Rockies starter Chad Bettis. Bettis pitched just five innings, matching his shortest outing of the season, allowing three runs on six hits with a pair of walks and six strikeouts. Three of the Cardinals' six hits against Bettis were by consecutive batters with two outs in the third. All of them were singles, but combined with the wild pitch and walk that followed netted St. Louis two runs.

The Cardinals got a third run against Bettis in the fifth when Mark Reynolds doubled home Matt Carpenter, who had singled.

The Rockies finally got on the board against Martinez in the seventh when he walked Daniel Descalso and gave up a two-run home run to Ben Paulsen, cutting the deficit to 3-2.

Randall Grichuk's solo home run against Tommy Kahnle in the eighth gave the Cardinals an insurance run and Trevor Rosenthal shut down the ninth inning to earn his league-leading 20th save of the season.

The Rockies now travel to Miami to open a four-game series against the Marlins tomorrow.