Marlins hand Sanchez ball in Colorado

It was almost four months ago when Marlins starter Anibal hitter of his career in a meeting with long losing streak.

Sanchez hopes to win for the first time in 12 starts this evening as Florida continues its three-game series with Colorado at Coors Field.

The 27-year-old took a no-hitter into the ninth inning of an April 22 outing versus the Rockies, but his bid for history was broken up on Dexter Fowler's broken-bat single to begin the frame. Still, Sanchez allowed just the one hit and three walks while yielding an unearned run in the victory, striking out nine to improve to 2-0 with a 1.74 earned run average in three career starts versus Colorado.

That outing seemed to promise big things for the righty in 2011, but Sanchez is currently stuck in a career-worst 11-start winless streak, going 0-5 in that span with a 5.31 ERA. He dropped his third straight start on Wednesday, yielding five runs on seven hits over just 1 2/3 innings.

"Our starting pitching has to get tough," Marlins manager Jack McKeon said afterwards. "We cannot keep battling back, fighting an uphill battle, four or five runs, every two or three innings at the beginning of the ball game. It's not going to work."

Sanchez fell to 6-6 on the season with a 4.00 ERA in 24 starts.

Rockies starter Jhoulys Chacin will oppose Sanchez tonight and didn't come close to matching him when the two squared off in April. Chacin lasted only five innings and allowed four runs to fall to 0-2 with a 7.50 ERA lifetime in this series.

The 23-year-old righty is coming off his second complete game of the season, but it was a 2-1 loss in Cincinnati on Thursday. Chacin gave up both runs on six hits and three walks over eight innings, striking out nine to match a career high.

Chacin is 9-9 with a 3.39 ERA this year, having lost five of his past six decisions.

The Marlins will look to record their second series victory over the Rockies in 2011 after winning last night's opener, 7-4, in dramatic fashion.

Carlos Gonzalez drove home the game-tying run with a double in the ninth inning and after Troy Tulowitzki was intentionally walked, Jason Giambi launched a game-winning, three-run homer off Randy Choate.

"That's a tremendous at bat against a left-hander with a very, very tough slot for a left-on-left situation and he stayed right in there," said Rockies manager Jim Tracy.

Tulowitzki drew the free pass after homering earlier in the game on a 2-2 curveball in the third inning. McKeon, in his 2,000th major-league game, didn't want to repeat the mistake.

"You don't hang high breaking balls to Tulowitzki when you got two strikes on him," said McKeon. "Throw it in the dirt."

The move still backfired as Florida lost for the 10th time in 11 games despite two-run homers from Mike Stanton and John Buck.

The Rockies opened their nine-game homestand with just their second victory in six games as well as only their third in the last eight meetings with the Marlins.