Rockies drop pitcher's duel via walk-off loss to Padres

The Colorado Rockies continue to play good baseball, but couldn’t come up with the win in a pitcher’s duel on Tuesday night.

Kyle Freeland and Dinelson Lamet were equally brilliant, in polar opposite ways.

The Padres starter used a nearly unhittable fastball/slider combination to overwhelm hitters all night. Freeland pitched his typical out-think-you type of game and neither man gave up a single run.

In fact, it would be tempting to critique the Rockies offense after scoring zero runs having actually hit the ball harder against Lamet than the Padres did against Freeland.

Both Ryan McMahon and Trevor Story hit screaming line drives that nearly left the ballyard, but as it turned out, nobody would score until the Padres walked it off on the final play of the game.

Moment of the Game: The Walk-Off

The Padres didn’t hit the ball especially hard against Carlos Estévez. Regardless, they finally hit ’em where they ain’t in the ninth. Greg Garcia shot a single against the shift the other way on a pitch hit off the end of his bat.

And Jurickson Profar was fooled a bit by a change-up but managed to stay back and loft a 75 MPH blooper to right field. Because the Rockies outfield had shifted well toward left field, Charlie Blackmon simply had too far to run and the Padres pinch-runner, Jorge Mateo, was able to sprint home all the way from first.

Player of the Game: Kyle Freeland

After his worst outing of the year, Freeland turned in one of his best. He used more breaking balls than he typically does and to great effect, keeping the dangerous Padres lineup off balance all night.

He allowed just three hits, all of them singles, and did walk three batters as he danced around the edges of the strike zone. That may have cost him a bit in terms of length, but the six strikeouts he recorded also came up huge in terms of keeping the scoreboard clean.

He had an especially impressive sequence in the fifth against Manny Machado with runners at second and third and just one away. He stayed low in the zone, eventually uncorking one of his best pitches of the season; a backfoot slider that the slugger swung through for a strikeout.

He lowered his season ERA to 3.60.

Tap Dancing with Yency Almonte

The Rockies reliever found himself in all kinds of trouble that he did not create in the seventh. Things began with an incredibly rare unforced throwing error from Nolan Arenado.

Then Jurickson Profar lined one just over shortstop for a single. Arenado made a nice play on a bunt from Trent Grisham, throwing back behind himself to Trevor Story covering the bag to get the lead runner on a force out. But another mistake gave the Padres a huge advantage when Tony Wolters couldn’t take advantage of a botched double steal.

With both runners caught in no-man’s-land, Wolters threw back to first rather than down to second and both men were able to advance. Almonte wisely worked around Fernando Tatis Jr., issuing the free pass.

Finally, his defense bailed him out when a hard liner off the bat of Manny Machado was hauled in by Arenado who unleashed a bazooka throw to first, doubling off Tatis Jr. to end the threat.

Almonte improved his season ERA to 2.91.

Diamond Details

• In an odd sequence, Eric Hosmer squared around to bunt with two strikes in the first inning and got hit in the fingers, both striking out and having to come out of the game.