Padres swept after 8-7 loss to Rockies
Credit: AP Photo
Coors Field- Denver, Colorado
The San Diego Padres came into this series thinking they would turn around their recent woes and return to their powerhouse status. They had just lost the previous series to the New York Mets but had a good performance in the final game. Spoiler alert, the Padres didn’t build off that good win. They showed up to Coors Field and were promptly swept.
Blake Snell took the mound for this final game and this did raise many questions. After this game, he has a 1.65 ERA at Petco Park and a 10.36 ERA when on the road. The Padres had just sent down Ryan Weathers almost immediately after taking him out of the six-man rotation.
Jayce Tingler called his demotion a way to develop him as a starting pitcher. He mentioned that as Dinelson Lamet comes back from his injury, they want to stick on a typical five-man rotation. This left Weathers out of the picture of today’s game.
As Snell’s stats show, he greatly struggled this game. Right away, he gave up two to put one run on the board. Then after he had CJ Cron in an 0-2 count, he gives up a home run on the 10th pitch of the at-bat. That was three runs with only one out recorded. In total, he would pitch three and a third innings, allow nine hits, five ER, two walks, and strike out three batters.
Thankfully for the Padres, the offense was freezing cold. In fact, they had kept the Padres in the game despite a rough outing by Snell. In the 3rd, Fernando Tatis Jr.hit his NL leading 21st home run. Later in the inning, Trent Grisham’s two-run home run would tie up the game.
In the very next inning, Tatis and Manny Machado hit back-to-back doubles to score two runs and give the Padres the lead this time around. This still wasn’t enough to maintain a lead. The Rockies would score three in the bottom half of the inning. The game would be in the Rockies’ hands until the top of the 9th despite Jake Cronenworth hitting a pinch-hit home run.
In the 9th, Trent Grisham came up to the plate with the Padres down by one and the bases loaded. He does his job and hits a sac fly to score Tommy Pham. That would be the only run from the bases-loaded situation. Because they did not have the lead, the Padres went with Austin Adams in the bottom half of the inning. He walked Trevor Story, who stole second base. At that point, Charlie Blackmon hit a soft grounder to center field, and that was game. The Padres had just been swept by the team with the 6th lowest winning percentage.
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“We need to get it going. There is no doubt about that. We all realize that. We got to get it clicking. It’s going to be a big homestand. We’ve got to start playing better baseball, better team baseball. Like I talked about eliminating the free 90 feet, the team at-bats, the getting on, moving runners, getting guys in. All those things. We’ve got to get those things tightened up”, Jayce Tingler said after the game.
This is the worst stretch in his young tenure as the Padres head coach. Last season he found a way to turn around players like Eric Hosmer and Wil Myers. Both of them have regressed to average players with big contracts. Maybe he can help them find their groove again and turn things around.
Evan is a student finishing up a degree in Finance from Northern Arizona University. The ability to break down numbers and find the story behind them has lead to his first of writing for East Village times. He covers baseball which is the sport he grew up playing and has followed even after his playing years.