This year he has moved ahead of Yorvit Torrealba, and he reaffirmed his status in Thursday's 5-3 win against Pittsburgh at Coors Field when he singled home one run and then hit the two-run, tiebreaking homer.

"He worked hard in the winter and had a good spring, but you want to see it in the season," manager Clint Hurdle said. "All facets of his game have improved. He's finding the barrel of the bat with regularity. He's starting to realize his strength."

Iannetta is strong. The two-run home run he hit off Pirates lefty Paul Maholm was a first-pitch changeup, after Garrett Atkins had singled home the tying run. The homer was delivered with a bat that broke.

"I snapped his bat on a first-pitch changeup and it goes 10 rows deep," Maholm said. "Nothing I can do about it."

Iannetta knows about helpless feelings. He had one last season.

"Last year was like a bad movie with some other guy playing," Iannetta said. "Hopefully, I'll never see it again."

There haven't even been glimpses this season. As well as having hit 10 home runs, the fifth-best single-season total for a catcher in Rockies history, he leads the team with a .353 average with runners in scoring position.

"I guess I could do worst than I did last year, but I was playing awful," Iannetta said. "I was still here and contributing, so I felt things could get better. I watch (Eli) Manning with the Giants last year. They wanted him out at the start of the year, and he led them to the Super Bowl at the end. I knew things could change."

ROCKIES 5, PIRATES 3: Ublado Jimenez worked seven innings, facing the minimum 12 batters and throwing only 39 pitches the final four innings of his effort after throwing 70 in the first three innings, including 35 in the Pirates' three-run fifth. Jimenez won for the fourth time in six starts. He has five quality starts in that stretch. Brian Fuentes struck out the side in the ninth for his 100th career save, two shy of the Rockies career record held by Jose Jimenez.