It wasn’t Game 163, but for a Rockies team playing for the future, Monday felt like a flashback and an omen.
Colorado beat the Padres 4-3 in 10 innings in Monday’s series opener at Coors Field in a game delayed two hours and 20 minutes by rain that was eventually played in front of a smattering of patient, poncho’d fans.
The Rockies got a quality start from southpaw Austin Gomber, wasted it, then rallied to win in the extra frame when Ryan McMahon’s walk-off sacrifice fly brought home Brenton Doyle, who beat Juan Soto’s throw from shallow left field.
“It was sort of in slow motion,” Rockies manager Bud Black said of the play. “We saw the ball go up, Brenton tag, the catch, the throw, the convergence. It was a great play for us.”
Doyle’s headfirst slide into home was reminiscent of Matt Holliday’s slide to beat the Padres in extra innings of the 2007 National League wild card game, and it dropped the underperforming Padres to 0-10 in extras this year.
Gomber continues to pitch like the Rockies should count him in their future plans, spinning six innings of two-run ball before Doyle — who threw out Soto at the dish in the eighth inning to preserve a one-run lead — slid in for the game-winning run.
With first pitch pushed back to 9 p.m. and the rain refusing to cease all night, Gomber and Padres starter Seth Lugo both cruised through the first three innings, before San Diego finally broke the stalemate with Jake Cronenworth’s RBI single in the fourth to make it 1-0.
Then the Rockies offense finally got to Lugo in the fifth, taking advantage of a couple errors and Elehuris Montero’s RBI double for a 2-1 lead. McMahon added to that advantage in the sixth with a 412-foot homer to right-center off Lugo. It was McMahon’s team-best 17th homer this year, and it came off a 1-2 elevated fastball to make it 3-1.
“For (McMahon) to come through (Sunday) like he did with two RBIs and we win 2-0 (against Oakland), and then tonight he had a couple big hits… and some good defensive plays too,” Black said. “He had a big night. And both teams played really good defense.”
Gomber continued to pitch well, setting down the Padres in order in the sixth before Cronenworth’s leadoff triple chased the southpaw from the game in the seventh. Jake Bird got Colorado out of the inning, but not before Matthew Batten’s two-out RBI single made it 3-2.
The two-run, six-inning outing marked a continued hot streak for Gomber, who finished July with a 2.70 ERA over five starts. That included 17 strikeouts and just two walks, including a franchise-record streak of 29 1/3 consecutive innings without yielding a free pass, a run that ended in the third inning on Monday.
The Padres, coming off a sweep of the Rangers in which they had to tax their bullpen, extended Lugo into the seventh, past 100 pitches. The veteran righty was clearly gassed as he walked Montero and Doyle, but Lugo K’d Jurickson Profar to end the inning.
In the eighth, Daniel Bard followed Bird, and the yips that led to him blowing last week’s game in Washington returned. Bard got Fernando Tatis Jr. to line out to start the inning, but then walked Juan Soto and Manny Machado. Bud Black had seen enough, and yanked Bard, replacing him with Justin Lawrence.
Xander Bogaerts singled off Lawrence on a hit that appeared might tie the game. But Doyle threw a perfect 99-mph dart to home to cut down Soto by about 20 feet, keeping the score at 3-2, and then Lawrence got Cronenworth to fly out to end the threat.
“Doyle made a great play earlier in the game too, that factored in,” Black said of the assist, Doyle’s sixth of the year. “He didn’t get any hits, but he contributed to our win.”
Lawrence was one out from completing the five-out save, but the Padres extended the game. Nine-hole hitter Trent Grisham blasted Lawrence’s hanging sweeper 422-feet into the Rockies’ bullpen in right-center, Grisham’s 14th career homer against Colorado. It was Lawrence’s third blown save in 11 tries this year.
The Padres proceeded to load the bases with no outs in the 10th inning, but the combination of Matt Koch and Brad Hand escaped the jam with no damage to set up McMahon’s walk-off in the bottom of the frame. It marked McMahon’s third career walk-off knock as the Rockies improved to 4-2 in extra-inning games this year.
