Second baseman Clint Barmes came clean.

He admitted Tuesday that the magnificent game-winning catch he made in short right field Sunday that resulted in a game-ending double play was really a close-but-not-quite effort.

“They’re going to miss calls,” Barmes said of the umpires. “We’ve had calls go the other way. And we may be in a better situation now than two games (ahead in the wild-card race) if all the calls were the right calls.”

Barmes made what appeared to be a tumbling catch as he dashed into short right field. Responding to a plea from right fielder Ryan Spilborghs, Barmes then threw to first base to double up Albert Pujols, stranding the trying run at third base and sealing the Rockies 4-3 win over the Cardinals. The ball was in Barmes’ hand as he rolled over, but photographs showed it touching the ground a moment earlier.

“The umpires are human,” Barmes said. “They’re going to make mistakes and there’s going to be times when they make mistakes and it benefits us. And this was one of those cases.”

Mike Winters was the umpire at second base and Sam Holbrook was working first base.

In other Rockies news, Jeff Francis threw three innings Tuesday in the instructional league. Manager Jim Tracy said he “wasn’t quite as sharp as his first outing,” but that was to be expected.

Manuel Corpas also threw in the instructional league Tuesday. Tracy said Corpas, who was supposed to pitch on consecutive days, “wasn’t very sharp” when he threw Sunday, so the instructional league staff decided it was best not to pitch him on back-to-back days.

“It was nothing physical,” Tracy said. “He just was not sharp enough to warrant the fact of thinking that this is a really good idea to turn right back again and do it again (Monday).”

Francis is coming back from arthroscopic shoulder surgery in late February that sidelined him the entire season. Corpas had bone chips removed from his elbow on July 24 and then developed an infection.