Ian Desmond walks off on Padres as Rockies win second straight series

DENVER – The Colorado Rockies came into their three-game set against the San Diego Padres riding high with some of their best wins of the season coming during a 30-16 stretch against teams with winning records.

There was concern that facing a team far below that mark might result in a letdown and while that almost happened, they were saved by Ian Desmond’s walk off two run home run in the bottom of the ninth.

For the second time in a week, the Rockies were down to their final out with Desmond at the plate and for the second time, he came through with a huge clutch hit.

Starter Kyle Freeland was his usual brilliant self at Coors Field, pitching into the seventh while dominating most of the game.

The Rockies missed out on a great chance in the third, getting a leadoff double off the top of the wall from David Dahl who just barely missed a home run to right. He moved to third on a line drive single to left off the bat of Chris Iannetta but the ball was hit too hard for him to score.

But Dahl made a baserunning mistake when Freeland laid down his bunt in the ensuing at-bat, getting caught too far off of third base so Eric Hosmer could catch him in a rundown, eventually making the out at the plate. The knife was twisted a bit more when Charlie Blackmon inevitably hit into a double play on the first pitch of his at-bat, taking a promising proposition and turning it into a frustrating one in the blink of an eye.

Dahl made up for his blunder in his next appearance, forgoing all that baserunning stuff by simply hitting the ball just a bit farther, clearing the wall this time in right-center field for his seventh home run of the season, giving the Rockies a 1-0 lead in the fifth.

The Padres tied it up right away with a solo home run of their own in the top of the sixth. Hunter Renfroe turned around a first-pitch fastball and launched it into the left-field bleachers on one of Freeland’s few mistakes of the afternoon.

The do-si-do continued in the next half inning as the Rockies retook the lead with some small ball. Blackmon managed a blooping single into very shallow center, stole second base, moved up on a DJ LeMahieu groundball to the right side, and score on a sac fly from Nolan Arenado to center. That’s executing the fundamentals.

Freeland came out for the seventh and got a weak ground out from Manuel Margot but then gave up a line drive single to A.J. Ellis. Over 100 pitches, that prompted manager Bud Black to go to the bullpen.

With Scott Oberg and Seunghwan Oh unavailable, he went to Bryan Shaw who immediately ran into some bad luck.

He got squeezed on a 3-2 walk to Wil Myers then got the ground ball it looked like he needed but Trevor Story hurried the play and couldn’t get anybody out, resulting in an error.

Now with the bases loaded and one out, he got another grounder from Jose Pirela but it got up the middle for a two-run single that swung the score in favor of the Padres at 3-2.

Jake McGee came on and recorded the final two outs without further incident.

Chris Rusin pitched the ninth and allowed a pair of baserunners but induced a double play to avoid any damage.

Story lucked into a one-out bloop single in the ninth, setting the stage for Desmond.

Final Stats:

Kyle Freeland: 6.1 IP, 7 H, 2 ER, 1 BB, 7 K

Bryan Shaw: 0.0 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 0 ER, 1 BB

Jake McGee: 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 ER, 0 BB, 2 K

What’s Next:

The Rockies will be looking for some revenge against the Cardinals who frustrated them immensely in St. Louis. They will welcome the Redbirds in for a three-game set beginning on Friday. Antonio Senzatela takes on Miles Mikolas in the first game. First pitch at 6:40 Mountain Time.