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Upton's homer brings D-Backs 8th straight win
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HERE IT COMES: D-Backs starting pitcher Dan Haren improved to 2-0 with his win Saturday against the Rockies.
The Associated Press
LET ME OUT OF HERE: Rockies manager Clint Hurdle leaves the field after a pitching change during Saturday’s game. The Rockies are 0-5 this season against the Diamondbacks.
If it were up to Orlando Hudson, 20-year-old prodigy Justin Upton would stay under the radar all season.
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He would find success at times and take his lumps at others, but do it away from the spotlight.
Performances like the one he had on Saturday afternoon — in front of a national TV audience on Fox — won’t afford Upton that leeway much longer.
Upton went 3-for-3 with a home run and four RBIs as the Diamondbacks won their eighth game in a row, 10-3 over Colorado in front of 29,256 at Chase Field.
He is batting .415 this season with five home runs and 11 RBIs.
“I’m seeing the ball good,” Upton said, “that’s pretty much it.”
“He’s locked in right now,” Mark Reynolds said.
Upton was the first overall pick in the 2005 draft and reached the major leagues last year as a teenager. He has steadily ascended the batting lineup from eighth to his current sixth spot.
“He’s riding a wave of confidence, yet when you talk about what the upside of this guy is and what kind of player he’s going to be down the road, I think you’re getting a little bit of a glimpse of it,” Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said.
Dan Haren did the job on the mound. He pitched six innings, giving up one run on five hits to move to 2-0 on the year.
With a 4-1 lead in the fourth inning, Haren let the first two batters reach base but got out of the inning unscathed. Upton’s three-run bomb in the fifth inning put the game out of reach.
“They’re making it easy on the pitchers,” Haren said of the offense.
Every starter drove in a run except Eric Byrnes, who went 2-for-4 with two doubles, a walk and two runs scored.
The Diamondbacks (9-2) have now outscored their opponents by a 72-32 margin.
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