Ubaldo Jimenez Gives Up One Run Against Twins, Earns 13th Win

Minneapolis, MN (Sports Network) - Ubaldo Jimenez rolled to his 13th win of the season behind eight strong innings as Colorado downed the Twins, 5-1.

Ryan Spilborghs hit a two-run homer and scored twice for the Rockies, who avoided a three-game sweep. Jimenez (13-1) yielded eight hits and a single run while walking two with four strikeouts.

Drew Butera drove in the lone run for Minnesota, while Francisco Liriano (6-4) was charged with three runs and five hits in seven innings. He fanned six and walked three.

The Rockies staked Jimenez to a 3-0 lead in the first inning. Todd Helton singled with one away and Troy Tulowitzki followed with a triple to center. Spilborghs was hit by a pitch and Miguel Olivo brought in another run with a base hit to center.

Melvin Mora followed with another hit to score Spilborghs and Olivo was hung up between second and third for the second out. The early troubles continued for Liriano, though, as Brad Hawpe was hit by a pitch and Chris Iannetta walked to load the bases. Clint Barmes struck out to end the inning.

That would be all the support Jimenez would need. He induced double-play groundouts to end the second, third and fourth innings and picked Denard Span off second for the second out in the sixth, then got Matt Tolbert to fly out.

Jason Kubel got on with a single in the seventh but was stranded at second.

"Those guys are good hitters over there. They look for fastballs and hit them hard every time," Jimenez said of the Twins' lineup. "If you allow them to score two or three runs, you're probably going to be down. When you're facing a guy like Liriano you have to find a way to pitch a better game than you're normally used to."

Colorado then expanded its lead in the eighth. After Liriano settled down to keep Colorado off the scoreboard, Alex Burnett came on in the eighth and hit Tulowitzki with a pitch before serving up Spilborghs' seventh home run of the season to make it a 5-0 game.

The Twins attempted to rally in their turn at the plate, as Jim Thome had a one-out double and Butera brought in a run with a base hit to center. Span then worked a walk but Joe Mauer hit into the team's fourth double play of the game in a pinch-hit appearance to kill the threat.

"He's good, he's 13-1 for a reason," said Minnesota's Michael Cuddyer of Jimenez. "It's nothing we haven't seen before. We've seen a lot of quality pitchers, he's good and in the upper echelon. We had a few chances throughout the course of the game, and put together good at-bats. Even the balls that were double plays were smoked. You can't control where the ball goes after you make contact."

Manuel Corpas recorded a 1-2-3 ninth to close things out.

Minnesota next heads to Philadelphia for a three-game series...Colorado will host Milwaukee for three games...Tolbert had the lone multi-hit game for the Twins...Hawpe had two hits for the Rockies...Colorado has won four of its last six games...Minnesota has dropped three of five overall...Tulowitzki was pulled from the game to start the bottom of the eighth after taking Burnett's pitch off his left hand...Colorado's Carlos Gonzalez was pinch hit for in the ninth after appearing to hurt his left knee fielding Butera's single in the eighth.