For the better part of three months, Ubaldo Jimenez kept the Rockies in most games he started with little to show for it and the realization that with better luck, he might have finished June with more than two wins.

The penance Jimenez paid for so long this season ended when July rolled around. He has been very good this month, but never better than Tuesday when he threw the first complete game of his career in his 38th start as the Rockies pushed around the Los Angeles Dodgers 10-1.

Jimenez held the Dodgers to four hits and didn't allow a runner to reach second base until Nomar Garciaparra led off the eighth with a double. Jimenez ended the inning by inducing his second double play of the game, allowing him to take the mound in the ninth.

How much did Jimenez want a shutout, which vanished when Matt Kemp started the ninth with a home run?

"I was starving for it," he said.

The shutout gone, Jimenez returned to the business at hand, finishing with 114 pitches (73 strikes). He retired 13 consecutive batters after Russell Martin's two-out single in the first and got 18 of 27 outs on groundballs.

The Rockies scored 10 runs for the second consecutive game against the Dodgers and banged out 18 hits, two fewer than Monday when Kip Wells' first-inning disaster put his teammates in an inescapable eight-run hole.

Jimenez took the mound Tuesday with the Rockies needing a victory to have any hope of winning the series today.

"It was just good that he put his foot down in a game we needed to have," manager Clint Hurdle said.

Jimenez, 24, has made five consecutive quality starts (allowing no more than three earned runs in at least six innings) this month and is 4-1 with a 2.04 ERA in those outings.

"He's growing up right before your eyes," Hurdle said. "He's focused. He's preparing well. His command continues to improve. He had command of three quality pitches (Tuesday)."

Jimenez walked only two of the 31 batters he faced and said the complete game was "a dream come true. Since I got to the big leagues last year, I always dream about it."

Jimenez said the key to his success was "really being aggressive, just going after hitters. Make them swing the bat."

That's something the Rockies did with regularity against left-hander Clayton Kershaw, 20, who was recalled from Double-A Jacksonville (Fla.) to make the start, his eighth of the season for the Dodgers, and who left after facing three batters in the fourth.

The Rockies' offensive barrage included solo home runs by Brad Hawpe, who went 3-for-5, in the second and Ian Stewart in the fifth.

While batting around in the third, the Rockies broke open the game with four runs, a rally that included a two-run single by Chris Iannetta and another by Stewart, who went 3-for-3 with four RBI and has driven in 10 runs in four games since returning from Triple-A Colorado Springs.

Jeff Baker went 4-for-5, tying a career high for hits in a game, and every player in the lineup except Jimenez got a hit.

But he received a standing ovation from the crowd of 41,567 when he came to bat and made the final out in a four-run eighth.

Pointing to his forearm, Jimenez said of the ovation, "I got chicken bumps."

Troy Tulowitzki singled in the second, giving him hits in six consecutive bats. He finished 2-for-4 in his second game since coming off the disabled list.

Before the game, Hurdle agreed Tulowitzki hitting seventh and Stewart hitting eighth offered an enticing possibility to lengthen the lineup.

But with such a small sample size, Hurdle understandably wanted to reserve judgment until seeing more of the two of them in tandem at the bottom of the order.

Nonetheless, Tulowitzki and Stewart have combined to go 13-for-18 in the two games against the Dodgers.

And Stewart, for his part, sensed the damage he and Tulowitzki can do together down in the order.

"I don't think me or 'Tulo' will be bunting down there," Stewart said. "We're all swinging the bat well, the whole team. We're all driving the ball."