ALBUQUERQUE — Todd Helton has been around the block enough to know spring training hype, especially about pitching, means about as little as spring results.

So when the Colorado veteran first baseman was asked before Friday's exhibition game against Seattle whether his team's starting pitching rotation was the best its ever been in his 13-year career, as some have suggested in recent weeks, Helton didn't take the bait.

"I'm not going to say that," Helton said. "On paper, it's good."

By night's end, there were two very telling pieces of evidence supporting Helton's general lack of enthusiasm about pitching in early April.

First, as an announced crowd of 9,813 at Isotopes Park was painfully reminded of, the game is not played on paper, and pitching staffs generally aren't as far along as the hitters this time of year.

The Mariners and Rockies played to an excruciating 11-11 tie in a game that lasted 3 hours, 47 minutes, featured 36 base hits, six errors and saw 49 players clutter up the postgame box score.

"That's the ugliest tie of the spring," Rockies manager Jim Tracy said.

Tracy then went on to far more troubling news for the Rockies.

A day after starting pitcher Jeff Francis had his best outing of the spring by allowing just three hits in five scoreless innings against the Chicago Cubs in Mesa, Ariz., the Rockies announced he would be placed on the 15-day disabled list when he felt left shoulder stiffness in a flat-ground throwing session Friday morning.

Francis, the Rockies' No. 2 starter who had surgery in the spring of 2009 to repair a torn left labrum, was scheduled to start Tuesday in Milwaukee against the Brewers in the Rockies' second game of the regular season.

He is the second vital piece of the Rockies puzzle who will be on the DL for opening day on Monday as closer Huston Street is experiencing right shoulder tightness.

"I threw the ball (Thursday) in a way I hadn't thrown it in a long time," Francis said. "It was probably pretty taxing on my shoulder. ... Needless to say, I'm pretty disappointed."

The way the Mariners jumped all over the Rockies' No. 3 pitcher, Aaron Cook, on Friday, there was plenty of pitching disappointment to go around.

Cook pitched three innings, allowing five runs (four earned), seven hits and striking out two Mariners. He didn't walk any. Cook ends his spring training campaign with an 8.15 ERA.

The only Mariners starter held hitless was left fielder Eric Byrnes. Seattle spread 17 hits among 11 players, including a 3-for-3 showing from short stop Jack Wilson.

Chone Figgins, the team's starting second baseman, hit his first home run of the spring on a 1-1 count in the top of the first inning, scoring leadoff hitter Ichiro Suzuki for two of the Mariner's four first-inning runs.

Seattle jumped out to an 11-3 lead by the top of the fifth inning before the Rockies settled down thanks to solid pitching from a slew of projected big league relievers.

Rafael Betancourt, Randy Flores, Matt Belisle and closer Franklin Morales combined to pitch the final four scoreless innings, allowing one hit, one walk and striking out three.

"This isn't the first time I've been involved in a game like that since last year with this team," Tracy said. "They will never stop playing. It doesn't matter whose out there. They're all wearing a shirt that says Rockies and that's who they play for. ... I was extremely pleased with what took place from about the fifth inning on."

The Rockies 19 hits came despite no player having more than two.

Outfielder Brad Hawpe, used as a designated hitter Friday, went 2-for-3 with three RBI. Hawpe, Carlos Gonzalez, Ryan Spilborghs and Brad Eldred all homered.

Former University of New Mexico and La Cueva High School star Jordan Pacheco, who was drafted in 2007 by the Rockies as a second baseman but was converted to catcher a season ago, entered the game for the Rockies in the top of the seventh inning to a large ovation.

Pacheco went 1-for-2 and threw out Mariners' outfielder Ryan Langerhans attempting to steal second base in the top of the eighth inning.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3060 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com. Read his blog at grammerschoolblog.com.