ATLANTA - Mike Hampton is pitching so well he doesn't even mind returning to Colorado.
Hampton won his eighth in a row, allowing four hits in eight innings as the Braves bounced back from a rare shutout with a 6-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday.
Robert Fick broke out of a slump with three RBIs, Marcus Giles homered and drove in two and Gary Sheffield extended his hitting streak to 22 games with a homer.
Hampton, the former Crystal River standout, is 8-0 over his past nine starts and has been especially dominant in the past three. The left-hander followed his first complete game of the season with two eight-inning stints, surrendering 12 hits and three earned runs in 25 innings.
"He's been lights out," Fick said. "He's turned it around, he's throwing strikes and he's getting a lot of ground balls. I wouldn't want to face him."
Hampton lowered his ERA to 4.04, quite a change from last season. He had the highest ERA (6.15) among qualifying starters during the last of two miserable seasons with the Rockies.
His next start comes Saturday at Coors Field.
"I have every intention of pitching well there," said Hampton, who was traded to the Braves during the offseason after flopping in the Mile High City. "I'm going to go in there with a confident mind frame that we're going to win. And I'm not going to change the way I've done things this past month or so."
EXPOS 4, GIANTS 0: Javier Vazquez pitched a three-hitter for his first shutout in nearly two years as host Montreal finished the season 7-0 against San Francisco. The Giants were swept in a season series of more than three games for the first time in the franchise's 121-year history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. The Giants are on a season-high six-game losing streak.
METS 8, ROCKIES 0: Former Devil Ray Steve Trachsel pitched his third career one-hitter, allowing only a sixth-inning double to pitcher Chin-Hui Tsao to lead host New York. The Mets won their sixth straight and swept the four-game series.
