Padres score five runs in ninth inning to take game, series from Rockies

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 23, 2026

Published in Baseball

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DENVER — Just when it seemed the Padres were not up to making Thursday afternoon a full-fledged Coors Field thrill ride, they put together a five-run ninth inning and beat the Rockies, 10-8.

All of their runs in the final inning came before they made an out — on a walk by Jackson Merrill, singles by Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and Miguel Andujar and a three-run homer by Gavin Sheets.

The victory secured the Padres’ sixth consecutive series win and sent them to Mexico City feeling like they could actually hit in altitude.

Mason Miller worked the ninth for his ninth save, which also gave ran his scoreless streak to 33 2/3 innings, tying him with Cla Meredith for the longest such streak in franchise history.

Thursday was the second time this season the Padres came back to win from multiple runs down in the ninth inning. It was also their eighth victory earned by scoring the deciding run in the seventh inning or later.

Strange things happen a mile high, in the thin air and in a giant ballpark. Pitches don’t move. Fly balls become home runs and doubles off the wall. Would-be outs become singles and singles become doubles in the vast outfield grass. Innings spiral.

After two days in which the baseball was not Coors Field’s usual kind of crazy, Thursday’s getaway day got a Rocky Mountain kind of unhinged.

Before their flight south, where they will play a pair of games at an even higher elevation (7,350 feet) this weekend, the Padres spent much of the game coming really close to breaking out of an offensive malaise that had gripped them for five games.

They came here with high hopes of rediscovering their power strokes. They hit one home run and scored four times in the first two games

The Padres had chances to turn the game into more the kind of thrill ride the Coors Field is known for. They couldn’t do their part, going 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position through eight innings.

They had at least one runner on base in each of the final eight innings and had a runner advance to second and/or third base in six of those innings.

The most disheartening of their failures came in the eighth, when they got the tying run to the plate and forced the Rockies to go to primary closer Victor Vodnik.

After Freddy Fermin drew a two-out walk and Jake Cronenworth followed with a single, Ramón Laureano sent the ninth pitch he saw from Juan Mejia through the right side to score Fermin and get Cronenworth to second.

Vodnik’s first batter was Fernando Tatis Jr., who struck out for the third time in the game.

The Rockies led 6-4 after a stretch from the bottom of the first through the top of the fifth in which the teams scored in six of the eight half-innings.

Rockies outfielder Mickey Moniak got the scoring started with his seventh home run of the season.

Machado led off the second inning with a hard single to right field and Bogaerts walked before a double by Andujar scored both. The Padres led 2-1 when three straight outs stranded Andujar.

The Rockies sent nine runners to the plate, seven of them with two outs, and scored four times in the bottom of the second.

Jake McCarthy turned a single into a double by hustling on a slow grounder through the middle and into right-center field before a single by Edouard Julien tied the game, Moniak singled and TJ Rumfield doubled both in to make it 4-2. Troy Johnston’s single made the Rockies’ lead 5-2

Rockies starter Ryan Feltner, who allowed the Padres six runs in four innings on April 11 at Petco Park, departed after the second inning with right (throwing) triceps tightness. Zach Agnos replaced him, and the Padres briefly picked up where they had left off against Feltner.

A single by Ramón Laureano and error by Rockies shortstop Ezequiel Tovar gave the Padres men at first and second with no outs in the third. But Merrill chose to sacrifice the runners over. Machado followed with a hard grounder up the middle that Agnos snagged, froze the runners and made the out at first. Bogaerts’ walk loaded the bases before Andujar’s fly ball to center field ended the chance

In the bottom of the third, Matt Waldron retired the same two batters he had an inning before. And a groundout from McCarthy completed a seven-pitch inning.

The Padres got to within two in the fourth inning when Jake Cronenworth dropped a two-out single into center field and Laureano followed with a line drive to center that became a triple when McCarthy made an ill-advised slide to attempt to catch the ball and had it roll past him to the wall.

The teams traded runs in the bottom of the fourth and top of the fifth — the Rockies scoring on leadoff triple by Julien and Tyler Freeman’s sacrifice bunt; the Padres getting a home run by Bogaerts.

Moniak’s second homer, this one off Adrian Morejón in the sixth inning, got the Rockies’ lead back to three runs. It was Moniak’s second two-homer game against the Padres this season and his third in two seasons.

They made it 8-4 against Ron Marinaccio in the seventh before Marinaccio worked a scoreless eighth.