LOS ANGELES -- Aaron Cook knows which team he's going to be pitching for in his next start. Hiroki Kuroda isn't so sure.
Cook outpitched Kuroda with seven scoreless innings, Troy Tulowitzki had a pair of RBI singles among his three hits, and the Colorado Rockies beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-1 on Wednesday night to avoid a three-game sweep.
Cook (2-5) scattered six hits, struck out two and walked two in his longest outing of an injury-delayed season. The 32-year-old right-hander, who missed the first two months with a broken finger on his pitching hand, has won consecutive starts after going 0-5 with a 5.82 ERA in his first seven outings.
"I'm not going to speculate after seven starts, but what we've had are two very consistent outings," Rockies manager Jim Tracy said when asked if Cook was all the way back. "He was very consistent for six innings against Arizona (in an 8-4 win) and he was very consistent again tonight. But tonight it was even better than it was in Arizona. He had a couple of moments back there where it got off track a little bit, but tonight it never got off track."
Cook got 13 of his 21 outs on grounders. Last season his percentage of ground-ball outs was 74.2, his highest since 2005.
"I just went out tonight with the mindset of just attacking the zone. And if I was going to miss, I was going to miss down," Cook said. "The big thing was they were swinging at pitches early, so I gained more confidence quicker and was able to mix in my breaking ball and slider a little bit to keep them off-balance. I never got out of rhythm the whole game, and that was huge."
Rex Brothers pitched the eighth, giving up a two-out double to Matt Kemp, and Huston Street earned his 27th save in 29 attempts. He threw 31 pitches, allowing Rod Barajas' ninth homer with one out in the ninth.
Kuroda (6-13) allowed one run and six hits over six innings with six strikeouts, but is 1-10 over his past 12 starts despite a more-than-adequate 3.38 ERA during that stretch. The 36-year-old righty managed to maintain his concentration as long as he could despite weeks of constant speculation that he might be dealt before Sunday's non-waiver trade deadline.
"Every time you go on the mound, you go out there to win," Kuroda said through a translator following his fourth straight loss. "So it's really frustrating and also disappointing at the same time when you lose. I've experienced that disappointment 13 times already this season. But my honest feeling right now is that I just can't fathom wearing another uniform but the Dodgers uniform right now."
Colorado broke through in the fifth when Tulowitzki drove in Eric Young Jr. from second with the Rockies' third straight two-out single. Kuroda minimized the damage by striking out Ty Wigginton after loading the bases with an intentional walk to Seth Smith.
"He's shown focus the whole season. That's him. He's a true professional," teammate Aaron Miles said. "He's been great. His record doesn't indicate how well he's pitched, and we all feel bad that we haven't been able to give him some more wins. But he gives us a chance to win every time out."
Wigginton, who had only four RBIs in his previous 20 games, came to the plate in the seventh batting just .154 this season with runners in scoring position. But he found a pitch to his liking from Blake Hawksworth and lined a double to left field that scored Tulowitzki, who doubled with two outs. Tulowitzki drove in the final run with a ninth-inning single against Hawksworth.
The frustrated Dodgers stranded a runner at second in three of the first four innings.
"Cook had a good sinker going tonight," Miles said. "He left the ball up a little bit sometimes, but his ball still had some good run on it and he was teasing the zone with it. He had good movement and didn't get into too much trouble."
Andre Ethier led off the sixth with a routine grounder to shortstop that Tulowitzki bobbled, but he had plenty of time to recover and make the throw because Ethier didn't bother to run it out at full speed. As a result, he heard it from the crowd of 29,976 during his long walk back to the third-base dugout.
Game notes
The Rockies recalled INF Chris Nelson from Triple-A Colorado Springs to fill the roster spot vacated when Jason Giambi went on the disabled list Tuesday with a strained left quad. ... The Dodgers' bullpen was a man short after RHP Kenley Jansen was hospitalized Tuesday night and all day Wednesday with an irregular heartbeat following his seven-pitch save in Clayton Kershaw's 3-2 victory. Jansen was expected to be released from White Memorial Medical Center on Thursday after undergoing more tests. ... Wigginton, who dropped a simple fly in left field by Rafael Furcal in Tuesday's game, started at 1B for the seventh time this season and was handcuffed by a pickoff throw from Cook that allowed Furcal to get to second. Cook was charged with the error, his second in 32 starts since the beginning of last season. ... Rockies 1B Todd Helton, 4-for-16 lifetime against Kuroda, wasn't in the starting lineup because Tracy wanted to rest him. Helton entered the game in the ninth for defense. Tulowitzki moved up to Helton's No. 3 spot in the lineup and Smith batted cleanup for the second time this season, going 2-for-3 with a pair of intentional walks.
