The Rockies did not go gently into their final night of the season at Coors Field. They got their tails kicked in front of 45,983 fans.
San Diego, trying to secure the third and final wild-card spot in the National League, cruised to a 9-3 victory on Saturday. The win kept the Padres two games in front of Milwaukee for the final spot.
Colorado has lost six of its last seven games at home, but Coors Field had not been kind to the Padres of late. Entering Saturday night’s game, they were 1-7 in LoDo this season and dating back to May 12, 2021, had lost 14 of their last 17 games here.
The Padres held a slim 3-2 lead entering the seventh before roughing up relievers Justin Lawrence and Chad Smith and scoring six runs.
“Maybe (Lawrence) was a little amped up, but you have to be able to throw strikes,” manager Bud Black said. “We’ve talked that with Justin, with Jake (Bird) and with Chad. Actually our whole bullpen, but especially those three guys if they are headed toward our future, their walk rate can’t be what it is.”
Lawrence, whom the Rockies hope can develop into a late-game reliever next season, gave up a one-out double to Jurickson Profar, back-to-back walks to Juan Soto and Manny Machado, and a two-run single to Jake Cronenworth.
Exit Lawrence and enter Smith, who gave up an RBI single to Brandon Drury to load the bases and then walked Josh Bell to force in a run. There were more than a few boobirds in what was left of the Saturday night crowd.
The boos continued when Ha-Seong Kim hit a high chopper that eluded rookie shortstop Ezequiel Tovar for a single and scored two more runs.
“I take pride in coming into games and keeping those runners off the bases,” said Lawrence, who’s averaging 5.08 walks per nine innings. “In the (seventh) inning, things kind of just snowballed on me and I didn’t make big pitches when I needed to. That’s kind of what it boils down to. You have to make the big pitches and that’s a tough lineup.”
There were a few positive moments for the big crowd to wrap its arms around. Ryan McMahon led off the first inning with a solo homer to right off Yu Darvish, McMahon’s 18th of the season. In the eighth, Randal Grichuk launched a two-out, solo homer off lefty Tim Hill. Grichuk has hit 17 home runs.
Darvish pitched six innings, allowing two runs on five hits, eight strikeouts and one walk. He improved to 16-7 and maintained his 3.05 ERA.
Before the game, Black said the biggest thing he wants to see from right-handed starter Chad Kuhl is consistency. Kuhl delivered with a solid start.
He pitched 5 2/3 innings, getting tagged for three runs on six hits. He struck out five and walked two.
“I felt like I had really good command, felt like I had a decent slider, and with the changeup, it was a big improvement, something we have been working on, tirelessly,” Kuhl said. “I was glad to see that that really played to their lefties.”
And for the first time in a long time, Kuhl didn’t give up a home run. Entering Saturday’s game, he had allowed at least one homer in 11 consecutive starts, the longest streak of his career and the third-longest in franchise history behind John Thomson (13 straight, 2002) and Jon Gray (16 straight, 2018-19).
The Padres hit Kuhl hard in the third to take a 2-1 lead, utilizing Austin Nolan’s leadoff double, a two-out RBI double by Machado and a subsequent RBI single by Cronenworth.
The Padres added another run off Kuhl in the fifth on a single by Profar, a double by Soto and an RBI groundout to short by Machado.
The Rockies, 41-39 at home, host the Padres Sunday afternoon in the final game at Coors this season. After a day off Monday, Colorado plays three games at San Francisco before finishing the season with six games against the Dodgers.
