On May 29, Troy Tulowitzki started the day hitting .224/.318/.393, a line even worse than his final results from an injury-plagued 2008 season. On that date, the Rockies fired Clint Hurdle, who had infamously benched Tulowitzki just more than a week earlier after Tulowitzki grounded into a double play by swinging at the first pitch when the Rockies were already down seven runs in the eighth inning. Since then, Tulowitzki has been on fire, hitting .304/.386/.621, including two singles, a walk and a sacrifice fly in five trips to the plate Saturday, a day after he stayed home with flu-like symptoms. While Tulowitzki himself said he doesn't feel like he's doing anything differently -- "I just got off to a slow start," he said, which is undeniably true -- hitting coach Don Baylor pointed out a change the shortstop made to his stance that has made a significant difference. "In spring training, he was really crossed over, and his arm was up" near his chin, with his back slightly crouched, Baylor said. The new stance "gives him a better view of the baseball now." In addition, Tulowitzki's approach has changed away from a dead-pull orientation. Now, "he's not pulling a lot of balls; he's hitting a lot of balls to straightaway center," Baylor said. "If you're going to come from [hitting] .190 to .280 like he has, it's not about pulling the ball -- it's about [hitting to] the big part of the field." Tulowitzki thinks his early season struggles this year were unrelated to his injuries in 2008: "When I came back last year, I wasn't 100 percent. This year, in spring training, I was." Looking at his nearly three years in the majors now, the middle season of 2008 does look like the outlier. With Tulowitzki back in the lineup Saturday, the Rockies were able to field their best defensive team, with him at short, Clint Barmes at second, Ian Stewart at third and Garrett Atkins on the bench. They also started two true center fielders in the outfield in Dexter Fowler and Carlos Gonzalez, leaving just Brad Hawpe as the only below-average defender on the field for Colorado. Other notes from Saturday: • Jorge De La Rosa was tagged with six runs in six innings, but his last three innings were much stronger than his first three. He was overpowering Giants hitters with his fastball in the first inning but tried to get cute and gave up home runs in the second on a changeup and a slider, and still messed around too much with off-speed stuff in the third. By the fourth inning, he was working more with his fastball and showed better command of the slider, to boot. • Meanwhile, San Francisco starter Joe Martinez had the opposite problem -- he was dealing the first time through Colorado's order, but the second time through the contact got louder, and the third time through, the Rockies had his number. His stuff was average or slightly below and he doesn't have a viable out pitch right now to work as a starter in a contender's rotation. • One day after Giants manager Bruce Bochy used his closer, Brian Wilson, to protect a four-run lead in the ninth, Rockies manager Jim Tracy did his own bit of overmanaging, bringing in Huston Street to protect a three-run lead with two outs to go after Matt Herges got a ground ball to second base that Barmes bobbled, retired one batter, then allowed a long two-run home run to Pablo Sandoval. Herges did his job with two out of three hitters, and Tracy trusted him enough to get three outs with a five-run lead, so why couldn't he get two outs with a three-run lead and the Giants' best hitter out of the way?