Padres 7, Rockies 6: Richard leads the RBI parade

The Friars were due for a big tear on offense. After a Brewers sweep, dropping their 4-game series at home against the Rockies 3-1 (being outscored 18-15), and throwing a few pitching duels against the world champion Astros, the kindness of a Coors series was a welcome two-way street of offense-friendly baseball.

Clayton Richard got his second chance against the Rockies after being tagged for 5 runs on 8 hits in 5 innings back on April 4th at Petco. He had 6 K’s then, but tonight was a Ground Ball Clayton kind of night. Despite forcing 9 different Rockies into ground ball outs, and striking out 3, and walking 3. He allowed 4 runs off of 2 mean home runs from Colorado. Through it all, the Padres kept the lead.

Jordan Lyles came in for some relief, eating up an inning and allowing a 2-run fan-ejection-worthy home run from Carlos Gonzalez. For this home run, an excited Rockies fan reached his hands out to catch a ball poised to land on the top of the wall. With Cory Spangenberg leaping and timing a catch perfectly the fan’s hand brushed against the ball and Spangy’s glove. The ball was knocked from Spangy’s glove from the force of his wrist bouncing against the top of the wall, and the call was ruled a home run after review.

Only, there’s kind of a rule about fans breaching the wall to the playing field and touching a player or the ball, which happened:

The fan certainly touched Spangenberg and the ball, he breached the wall and should have turned a home run into an out despite not being the ultimate reason for the ball coming loose. Andy Green wasn’t too stoked about the missed call. He came out to protest the decision aaand:

Green’s hat never stood a chance. Regardless, the Friars were more productive and consistent than an entire booth full of umpires reviewing a simple rule enforcement displayed on high definition monitors.

The Pads were swinging’ tonight.

First, you’ve got your boy Manuel Margot plating Jose Pirela in the 2nd inning on a clutch RBI single while fighting an 0-2 count. Then, the Padres tear through Jon Gray some more with an Austin Hedges RBI double.

To ensure victory, Clayton Richard blasts his first home run of 2018, a 3-run shot into right center. You know Richard rakes, and now you get to see Richard rake:

Carlos Asuaje wanted in on the action too, and crushed his own solo HR into nearly the same exact spot. Couldn’t get it further than Richard, though. Have you seen the guns on Clayton?

With a Pirela RBI-double in the 5th inning and some solid 7-8-9 inning relief from Craig Stammen and Brad Hand, the Padres were able to bring Andy Green and his dirty crushed SD hat the 7-6 W.