Rockies 8, Padres 4: Bombs can’t stop Rocks

Another season at Petco Park has come to an end, and while that’s always a sad occasion, today was sadder than usual. While the Padres bats looked pretty good today, launching three home runs and three doubles, they couldn’t overcome some sloppy defense and rough pitching. The Friars did their best to make the last week of the season interesting, but the Rockies are leaving San Diego with a two game lead for the second wild card spot.

Colorado opened the game with a trio of singles off Luis Perdomo to score Charlie Blackmon. The Pads replied in the bottom of the first, and they were loud. Wil Myers and Yangervis Solarte hit back-to-back bombs to give the team the one brief lead they would get this afternoon.

In the second, Rocky Gale got a taste of how hard the big leagues can be. He failed to gun down Ian Desmond, who stole second after a leadoff walk. Then he had trouble with a wild pitch from Perdomo, an opportunity Desmond seized. The Rocky on the basepaths handily beat the Rocky behind the plate, who airmailed a throw to third he shouldn’t have made in the first place, allowing Desmond to reach home and tie the game.

After Blackmon drew a walk to start the third, the Rockies put together three singles (two of them coming with two outs) to score two more runs. A two-out rally was problematic for the Padres in the sixth, too. After Kyle McGrath took over for Perdomo, he retired the first two batters he saw. And then Trevor Story caused problems with a line drive single. Story swiped second, then McGrath walked to bring up pinch hitter Pat Valaika. Valaika hit a double to score what would end up being the game-winning run.

The Padres got two more in the bottom of the sixth when Christian Villanueva hit a two-run homer (his third in just a week of big league playing time) to narrow the gap to one run. That’s where things sat until Buddy Baumann took the mound in the ninth inning. He gave up back-to-back jacks to Valaika and Blackmon before giving up a two-out single to Ryan Hanigan. That got him yanked in favor of Miguel Diaz, who allowed Hanigan to score when Mark Reynolds hit a double to left.

In the bottom of the ninth, the Padres struck out in order to end the inning, the game, and the home season.

The Padres will head up the 5 to face the NL West Champion Dodgers (did anyone else vomit thinking about that) tomorrow. First pitch at 7:10 PM.