Rockies rally but blow it late against the Padres

The Colorado Rockies had every chance to beat the San Diego Padres on Saturday night despite a slower night from the bats but the key moments went to the visitors in a 3-2 loss at Coors Field.

The offense couldn’t get anything going against Padres’ starter Joey Lucchesi and didn’t end up with enough chances against the bullpen to complete a comeback.

Starter Jon Gray had a good performance that was almost great. He came roaring out of the gates, striking out seven batters over the first three innings of the game, but a couple of huge solo home runs kept him from having a dominant outing.

Hunter Renfroe broke through against Gray in the top of the fourth by ambushing a fastball and driving it 486 feet to left field for a solo home run to give the Padres a 1-0 lead.

The Padres added another run in the sixth, taking advantage of an ill-timed wild pitch. Manny Machado came up with a one-out single and advanced on the ball in the dirt which ended up very important as Eric Hosmer single through the right side was able to plate Machado from second.

Colorado answered and finally got on the board in the bottom of the sixth thanks to a one-out double into the right-center field gap off the bat of Trevor Story. He also took advantage of a wild pitch, moving up to third so that Nolan Arenado could cash him in with a fly ball into right field to make it 2-1.

But the Padres came back with another big solo shot, this one from Rockie-killer Wil Myers who blasted a hanging slider from Gray way over the wall in left to again make it a two-run game.

But again the Rockies answered.

With one out in the bottom of the seventh, David Dahl lined a double over Myers’ head in center field but after a pop up from Garrett Hampson, it looked like he might stay there. Tony Wolters made sure that didn’t happen with a two-out, two-strike slasher the other way for an RBI single.

Mike Dunn recorded a couple of outs, including a strikeout before giving way to Carlos Estevez who worked 1.1 clean innings with three strikeouts to keep the game close.

That allowed Charlie Blackmon to tie it up with a solo home run in the eighth on a handing breaking ball inside that he pulled over the high scoreboard in right.

Wade Davis came into the tie game in the top of the ninth and got a quick groundout but then got wild, falling behind Myers before giving up single before walking Austin Hedges and the debuting Austin Allen on four pitches. He got a groundball from Greg Garcia but it was in the hole a bit. Hampson fielded it but attempted an awkward throw home that was offline, allowing the go-ahead run to score.

Davis got his 1-2-3 double play in the next at-bat, but the damage was done. For the first time this season, Davis’ dancing with trouble came back to bite him and his club.

That made the final score 4-3 and the Rockies will now no longer be able to get back to .500 this series.