DENVER – A blood blister finally did to Jorge De La Rosa what the Arizona Diamondbacks couldn't — drive him from the game.
"We didn't have any luck against him," Chris Young said. "So, we had to feel good about our chances. I was disappointed we didn't do more damage against their bullpen. We did get the chance at the end, but were a few feet short of getting back into it."
De La Rosa scattered three harmless singles and drove in a run before leaving in the sixth inning with a blister on his left middle finger, and the Rockies beat the Diamondbacks 3-1 Saturday night.
After Kelly Johnson grounded out leading off the sixth, manager Jim Tracy and head athletic trainer Keith Dugger rushed out to the mound, took a quick look at De La Rosa and decided his night was over. He dejectedly walked off toward the dugout.
De La Rosa (1-0), who missed two months last year with a freak tendon injury to the same finger, struck out five and walked one before he was replaced by Matt Belisle.
"You saw what De La Rosa can do," Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said. "He threw more changeups tonight and against that windup of his it's hard to hold up. I saw the same kind of effort in spring training when his stuff was nasty. I thought we had a better chance when he came out of the game, but came up short."
Belisle gave up one hit in 1 2-3 innings.
Rafael Betancourt pitched the eighth and Huston Street got the final three outs for his first save. But he needed 32 pitches to do it. He gave up a leadoff single to Justin Upton and walked Young before Ryan Roberts' RBI single gave Arizona its first run.
Miguel Montero flied out to center and pinch-hitter Russell Branyan flied out to the wall in left-center, moving the runners up. Gerardo Parra then struck out to end it.
"We had so many good at-bats against Street," Gibson said. "The walk to Young and then Russell just missed one."
Daniel Hudson (0-1) took the loss after surrendering three runs, all earned, on six hits over six innings. He also walked one and struck out five.
De La Rosa was one of Colorado's key signings over the winter. He agreed a two-year, $21 million deal to stay in Colorado, where he's enjoyed the most success of his career. The Rockies are 31-13 in his starts since June 2009.
A torn pulley tendon on his left middle finger limited De La Rosa to 20 starts last season, when he went 8-7 a year after going 16-9 and helping the Rockies win the NL wild card.
Hudson was one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball over the last two months of last season, when he went 7-1 with a 1.79 ERA with just 16 walks to go with 70 strikeouts. He wasn't bad on this night, limiting the middle of Colorado's powerful order to one hit in eight at-bats.
Colorado's big hits came from the bottom of the order.
Chris Iannetta, the No. 8 hitter, singled and scored on Dexter Fowler's RBI double in the first. In the fourth, Iannetta hit a two-out RBI double and then scored on De La Rosa's line drive over first baseman Xavier Nady's head that capped a seven-pitch at-bat and made it 3-0.
"I made a mistake to Iannetta," Hudson said. "I wanted to get the ball in and it stayed out over the plate. I made a good pitch to De La Rosa and he got around on it. Hey, I got a hit off of him in the game."
That was a single in the third inning. His teammates managed just two more singles off De La Rosa, one by Willie Bloomquist leading off the game and another by Montero in the second.
NOTES: The D-Backs haven't started out 2-0 since 2002, splitting their first two games every year since. ... The Rockies followed up Friday's crowd of 49,374 with a crowd of 40,216
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.