LATE FRIDAY Diamondbacks use selection of singles to gain rare win over San Francisco, 5-4

Arizona stayed one game behind in the Wild Card race.
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PHOENIX -- With Arizona's offensive problems this season, the Diamondbacks were more than willing to accept singles against their toughest opponent.
Junior Spivey and Shea Hillenbrand drove in two runs each with singles, and Danny Bautista had an RBI single Friday as the Diamondbacks beat the San Francisco Giants, 5-4.
"Singles, doubles, it doesn't matter," Spivey said. "You just have to come up with the big hits when you need them, and especially with runners in scoring position, because we've had a tough time scoring runs this year."
Eleven of Arizona's 13 hits were singles, and the Diamondbacks, 3-10 against San Francisco this season, scored all their runs with two outs.
The Giants have won seven of their last 10, but now have back-to-back losses for the first time since losing their sixth straight Aug. 18.
Miguel Batista (9-7) worked six innings to become the first Diamondbacks pitcher with nine victories and keep Arizona a game behind NL wild-card leaders Florida and Philadelphia.
Oscar Villarreal and Jose Valverde each pitched a perfect inning for the Diamondbacks before Matt Mantei got three outs in the ninth for his 21st save in 22 chances.
Andres Galarraga, who also had a run-scoring double, hit a 456-foot homer with one out in the ninth, ending Mantei's consecutive scoreless-innings streak at 21 -- two outs shy of the club record for relievers set by Willie Banks in 1998.
Poor pitching
Kirk Rueter (7-5) fell to 0-4 in his last nine starts, two since he came off the disabled list Aug. 23. He gave up five runs on seven hits and two walks before he was yanked after facing two batters in the fifth.
He walked Alex Cintron and threw 11 pitches to Luis Gonzalez, who fouled off five balls on a full count before lining a single to right field.
Matt Herges, who relieved Rueter, got two outs on outfield flies before Spivey drove a pitch back up the middle as Cintron scored from second.
"It's just one of those things," Rueter said. "It's usually the team that wins the game will get two-out hits, and they got all their runs on two outs."
Batista allowed three runs on six hits, including RBI doubles by Benito Santiago, Galarraga and Jeffrey Hammonds, and two walks to earn his second straight victory after a six-start winless stretch.
He retired 11 of his last 13 batters after falling behind 3-1 in the third.
"I was glad to see him leave," Giants manager Felipe Alou said. "He had a real good splitter. He had everything -- cutter, his fastball was sinking good."
Santiago and Galarraga had their RBI doubles in the second inning, and Hammonds got his in the third.
But Batista started the go-ahead rally with a single up the middle in the third.
"That was big for us, to get on base and score a run," manager Bob Brenly said. "Getting offensive production from a spot that you don't anticipate getting it from."
Matt Kata followed with a double. Two outs later, Rueter walked Raul Mondesi to load the bases, and Hillenbrand poked a two-run single into short right field.
Spivey then gave Arizona a 4-3 lead with a single and had another RBI single in the fifth.
Dodgers 6, Rockies 4
LOS ANGELES -- No team in the NL West has a worse record against its division rivals than Los Angeles. The Dodgers won't win the wild-card race unless they reverse that trend.
Kevin Brown shrugged off a pair of two-run homers by Colorado's Jay Payton to notch his 13th victory and the Dodgers beat the Rockies, beginning a stretch in which they will play 26 of their final 29 games against West Division teams.
"The West is the toughest division in the National League. Every team has really good pitching, and that makes a big difference," said Dodgers right fielder Shawn Green, who had an RBI double.
"We've been hitting the ball pretty well the last couple of months and scoring runs, and it hasn't been as much of an issue as it obviously was the first half of the season."
Los Angeles is 20-30 against the West -- including nine losses to the San Diego Padres, whose 54-81 record is the third worst in the majors.
"We're not kicking ourselves over anything that's happened this year. There's no lost opportunities. There's just the future," Green said. "Right now we're 11/2 games out, so we've just got to keep playing good baseball over the next month. And if we can do that, then we'll have as good a chance as anybody to get into the postseason."
The Rockies, seven games under .500 after their sixth loss in seven games, are an almost insurmountable 71/2 games off the pace for the wild card with eight teams in front of them -- all separated by just 11/2 games.