Feeling Chatty: Tyler Chatwood dominates Padres in Rockies win

We may have witnessed history at Coors Field on Friday night. We aren’t entirely sure because it is a strange history but anytime you find something in a game that is 148 years old that may have never happened before, you have to stop and appreciate it no matter how odd. And in the Colorado Rockies 6-1 win over the San Diego Padres, Tyler Chatwood did something that maybe (maybe!) has never been done before in the long and glorious past of Major League Baseball.

After the conclusion of the fifth, Chatwood had allowed 20 baserunners over his last 13.1 innings pitched. We can’t sort by the proper variables at this time and are still doing research (that frankly could take some time) but so far have been unable to find any other pitcher in MLB history who has allowed that many baserunners over that few innings and not allowed a run.

Chatwood finally did allow a run with two outs in the sixth inning, bringing him to an even 14 clean despite all the traffic, before Wil Myers smashed a cutter 457 feet, deep over the wall in left-center to put the Padres on the board. That was the last batter the Rockies starter would face.

His final line: 5.2, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 3 K.

Colorado scored all of their runs (until a Nolan Arenado home run in eighth) on a four-run outburst in the second.

The two-out rally was started by Carlos Gonzalez who hit a grounder that bounced off the glove of the pitcher and fell into no-man’s land between the mound and second base, going down as a single. Mark Reynolds then cracked a double down the right-field line but third base coach Stu Cole elected to hold CarGo at third with two outs.

The Padres intentionally walked Jonathan Lucroy to load the bases for Chatwood who came through with a big two-RBI single to right, scoring Gonzalez and Reynolds. DJ LeMahieu followed by lining a triple high off the scoreboard in right field to score Lucroy and Chatwood.

Scott Oberg induced four straight groundball outs in relief and Pat Neshek picked up an inning, allowing a double but no runs, striking out one. Jake McGee allowed back-to-back one-out singles to Erick Aybar and Jabari Blash in the ninth but struck out Austin Hedges and got a fly out from Hector Sanchez to end it.

After Arenado’s eighth-inning homer, Trevor Story hit a triple in between the left and center fielders and scored on a sac fly from Ian Desmond to make the score 6-1, and that would be the final.

Arenado now has 34 home runs on the season and leads MLB with 124 RBI.

Colorado improved to 81-67 but with Milwaukee winning over the Marlins only maintained their 2.5 game lead on the second spot in the National League Wild Card.