ST. LOUIS – No Clydesdale or convertibles. No success, either for the St. Louis Cardinals in their rescheduled home opener.

Third baseman Troy Glaus’ throwing error allowed the tying run to score and Jayson Nix walked with the bases loaded in a two-run eighth inning, helping the Colorado Rockies begin defense of their NL championship with a 2-1 victory on Tuesday night.

Cardinals castoff Kip Wells pitched into the sixth in his second career opening-day start, Clay Buchholz (1-0) pitched a scoreless seventh and Manny Corpas pitched a perfect ninth for the save.

Colorado won 14 of its final 15 regular-season games to become the NL wild card, then won seven straight in the postseason for its first NL pennant before being swept by Boston in the World Series.

Kyle Lohse allowed three hits in five scoreless innings for St. Louis and Yadier Molina homered. The Cardinals were limited to six hits a night after their 5-1 third-inning lead against Rockies ace Jeff Francis was washed out.

The makeup opener began in 46-degree chill and the temperature was down to 42 degrees by the ninth. While the Cardinals announced a sellout crowd of 45,996, there were thousands of empty seats.

St. Louis got the pomp out of the way on Monday, when current players and Hall of Famers were delivered to home plate on the backs of convertibles and a team of Budweiser’s famed steeds made an appearance.

Glaus, who replaced seven-time Gold Glover Scott Rolen at third base, threw sidearm and well wild of the plate on Matt Holliday’s slow roller with runners at second and third and no outs in the eighth.

Troy Tulowitzki singled and Todd Helton doubled, both off Ryan Franklin (0-1), to open the inning.

Randy Flores struck out Brad Hawpe and Yorvit Torrealba with the bases loaded before Nix, the lone newcomer to the Rockies’ lineup, walked on five pitches.

AP-ES-04-01-08 2323EDT