Kansas City, Mo. ? The Colorado Rockies have a healthy Jeff Francis to compliment ace Ubaldo Jimenez.

Francis was the Rockies ace in 2007 winning 17 games, but he sat out last year after having surgery on his left shoulder. After starting the season on the disabled list and making a couple of minor league rehab starts, Francis appears back to his 2007 form.

He combined with three relievers on a six-hitter and Troy Tulowitzki homered to help the Colorado Rockies beat the Kansas City Royals 3-0 on Saturday.

Francis held the Royals to five hits over 61/3 innings while walking two and striking out three. Francis (1-0) has given up just one run and 12 hits in 131/3 innings since coming off the disabled list.

“What a boost for our club to have him back to go along with Ubaldo,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said. “What I’ve been extremely encouraged by is where his velocity is sitting right now. His fastball has life in the hitting area, which makes his change up and curveball that much more effective.”

Francis was 0-1 with a 5.64 earned-run average in spring training, so the Rockies opted to keep him in extended spring to build up his shoulder when the season opened.

“What I’ve seen in these two starts here, we never even got a glimpse of this over the course of six weeks in Tucson,” Tracy said. “We never saw this type of velocity. We didn’t see the ball coming out of his hand the way it’s coming out right now.”

Tulowitzki broke up a scoreless pitching duel with a two-out sixth inning home run on the first pitch from right-hander Kyle Davies (3-3). He gave up one run and five hits in six innings. Davies struck out six and for the first time in nine starts this season did not walk a batter.

“You give up one run in six innings and lose but, you know Francis is a good pitcher,” Davies said. “He fooled us every which way possible. His curveball was one of the better curveballs in the league today. It was pretty much breaking about five or six feet. Tip your hat to the guy. He pitched a good ballgame.”

Left-hander Dusty Hughes replaced Davies to start the seventh and gave up two runs on three hits without retiring a batter. Seth Smith led off the inning with a double and scored on Miguel Olivo’s triple. Ian Stewart singled home Olivo.

Manuel Corpas worked the ninth for his third save in four opportunities to complete the Rockies’ sixth shutout of the season.