Struggling Padres Continue to Lose Ground in Mile High City
The season-long struggles continued for the Padres this week in Colorado as the team lost two out of three to the surging Rockies.
The series began well for the Padres as they won the first game 4-3 on Tuesday night. Eric Hosmer homered in the 1st inning to give the Padres a 2-0 lead and extend his hitting streak to 9 games. Freddy Galvis hit a sac fly in the 2nd inning to extend the lead to 3-0.
The Rockies cut the lead to 3-2 in the 3rd and tied the game on a Chris Iannetta solo home run in the 5th. However Austin Hedges led off 6th with a solo home run to put the Padres on top 4-3 and the bullpen hung on to give the Padres the victory in the first game of the series.
Colorado turned the tables on Wednesday with a 6-2 win. The Padres once again scored in the top of the 1st on a Cory Spangenberg RBI double but the Rockies responded to tie the game in the bottom half of the inning and scored two more in the 2nd to take a 3-1 lead.
Ian Desmond tripled in two and extended the Rockies lead to 5-1 in the 6th. Freddy Galvis hit his 11th home run of the year in the 7th to cut the Rockies lead to 5-2 but the Rockies added another run in the 8th to take a 6-2 lead, a lead they would not relinquish.
Ian Desmond was the hero for Colorado on Thursday as his walk off home run put the Rockies in a tie for the second Wild Card spot with the Milwaukee Brewers. Jose Pirela gave the Padres a 3-2 lead in the 7th on a two run single but Kirby Yates gave up a two run walk off home run to Desmond with two outs in the 9th inning to give the Rockies a 4-3 win.
The Padres will now head to Chavez Ravine for a three game weekend series vs the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Padres will have a chance to play spoiler as the struggling Dodgers are in the midst of a heated chase for the Wild Card and NL West. Clayton Richard (7-10, 5.11 ERA) will take the ball on Friday night and Brett Kennedy (0-2, 8.36 ERA) will take the ball on Saturday.
In other news, the Padres 2019 schedule was released this week. The team will open up the season at home on March 28th, 2019 with a four game series vs the San Francisco Giants. Other games of note are a visit to Yankee Stadium for a three game series May 27th-29th against the Bronx Bombers and a visit from the Boston Red Sox August 23th-25th.
