By ,
Published February 05, 2015
Denver, CO (SportsNetwork.com) - Justin Morneau homered and drove in three runs as the Colorado Rockies topped the Atlanta Braves 10-3 at Coors Field.
Charlie Blackmon hit a two-run homer in the third inning for the Rockies, who won two straight to earn a split of this four-game series.
Jhoulys Chacin (1-4) picked up his first win since last Sept. 20 after holding the Braves to a pair of hits over seven scoreless innings. He struck out five and walked two.
Atlanta starter Ervin Santana (5-3) was tagged for six runs on seven hits in 6 1/3 innings.
The game became testy in the bottom of the eighth after Braves catcher Gerald Laird got hit hard in the mask by Corey Dickerson's backswing. Laird was down for a couple minutes before being helped off the field.
"I'm sure he's gonna be a little sore," Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez said about Laird. "I think Dickerson actually got him more on the jaw than the head."
David Carpenter drilled Dickerson with the next pitch, resulting in the ejection of the Atlanta reliever. Colorado manager Walt Weiss also got tossed after coming onto the field and shouting at the Braves dugout.
Dickerson thinks he was hit on purpose.
"It was almost behind me," he said. "The guys has been in the big leagues a while. It's pretty hard to miss that far. I'm not the one to say if it was intentional or not, but I felt like it was."
The ejections continued in the ninth.
Rockies pitcher Nick Masset was thrown out along with bench coach Tom Runnells after plunking Evan Gattis with two outs.
Gattis, who replaced Laird, simply put his head down and ran to first.
"I'm really proud of the way Gattis handled that situation," Gonzalez said.
Prior to the beanballs, Morneau extended Colorado's lead to 3-0 with a solo blast to right-center field in the sixth and singled home two during a five- run seventh.
Jason Heyward spoiled the shutout bid in the eighth with an RBI single off Adam Ottavino, who also gave up a two-run homer to B.J. Upton.
Game Notes
The Rockies finished 3-7 on their homestand ... Chacin became the seventh pitcher in franchise history to reach 500 career strikeouts ... Santana had eight strikeouts ... Colorado was 4-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
https://www.foxnews.com/sports/rockies-top-braves-in-testy-affair