Padres walk off with victory over Rockies in must-win game

That’s baseball.

After so many games this season, some version of that adage, a verbal shrug and a nod to how unpredictable the sport is, has been uttered in the Padres clubhouse.

Yes, it is baseball.

But the Padres can no longer afford that as an explanation for losses that could have or should have been wins if they want to continue playing beyond Sept. 27.

So it was fortunate for them that the Rockies play a shoddy version of the game.

The Padres beat the team with the worst record in the major leagues 8-7 Tuesday at Petco Park when Xander Bogaerts drove in Jackson Merrill with a sacrifice fly in the ninth inning.

Merrill had singled to start the inning, stole second and advanced to third when the throw from catcher Hunter Goodman bounced into center field.

After walks to Luis Rengifo and Sung-Mun Song, Bogaerts hit a fly ball to center field that allowed Merrill to score.

The Padres lost a 2-0 lead, came back from a pair of two-run deficits and then a one-run deficit and finally won it when Mason Miller struck out all three batters he faced in the top of the ninth.

They were able to make it to that point almost in spite of themselves — and very much because they were playing the Rockies.

The Padres scored in each of the final five innings.

They had to. Both times the Padres tied the game, the Rockies got the lead back.

They scored twice in the seventh inning off Bradgley Rodriguez, a half-inning after the Padres had tied the game with a run that should have been more.

The Rockies took a 7-6 lead in the eighth inning with help from Bogaerts’ error and a bases-loaded walk by Adrian Morejón.

That was the Padres’ only error. The Padres scored as a result of both Rockies errors and could have (and arguably should have) scored more in both those innings and multiple others.

The Padres made a third out at the plate in the second inning, had their fifth and sixth inning rallies truncated by double-play grounders and failed to add on in the seventh after having a runner at second base with one out.

The time has passed where a loss to Michael Lorenzen and the Rockies can be sloughed off as what happens from time to time over the course of a 162-game season.

Because it has happened too often to the Padres.

They cannot have it happening now.

The Padres were on Tuesday attempting to remain 1½ games behind the Diamondbacks in the race for the National League’s final wild-card spot.

They were also trying to get above .500 for the first time since July 1 and keep pointing their front office toward being buyers before Monday’s trade deadline.

But one rough inning by their best starting pitcher, Michael King, and a slew of missed opportunities had them in trouble against the team with baseball’s worst record.

Lorenzen came into the game having allowed more hits (141) than any pitcher in the major leagues. And he had yielded those in just 100 innings — 20 fewer than any pitcher within 10 hits of his total.

The Padres got eight hits and had Lorenzen out of the game two batters (and no outs) into the fifth inning.

But they couldn’t keep promising innings going.

Gavin Sheets’ two-out walk preceded a single by Bogaerts, a double by Luis Campusano and a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. that gave the Padres a 2-0 lead in the second inning.

Lorenzen did not retire anyone for the third out. Instead, Campusano was thrown out by right fielder Jake McCarthy trying to follow Bogaerts home on Tatis’ single.

From that run not realized, the game leaked away.

King had thrown just 24 pitches and allowed only a single in the first two innings. But a fastball down the middle on the first pitch in the third inning was hit over the wall in right field by Willi Castro to halve the lead and begin a barrage.

Edouard Julien followed with a double sliced softly the other way just inside the left field line. And after King struck out Ezequiel Tovar, McCarthy drove in Julien with a single and Mickey Moniak resumed his destruction of his hometown team with a two-run homer.

It was the La Costa Canyon High School alumnus’ fifth home run in his past six games at Petco Park.

In between singles by Manny Machado and Merrill in the bottom of the third, Ty France launched a ball that was caught at the wall in left field, and Rengifo had a 104 mph line drive caught by first baseman TJ Rumfield to end the inning.

In the fourth, Craig Stammen and infield coach Ryan Goins were ejected. Their being sent off was the culmination of a strange few minutes in which Bogaerts was not allowed to challenge a strike call and then grounded into a fielder’s choice, and home plate umpire Jeremie Rehak took exception to what he heard from Stammen and first base umpire Dan Iassogna didn’t like what Goins said.

The Padres got to 4-3 in the fifth, but even that left them disappointed.

Tatis led off with a single and got to third when he blocked Julien’s view on Cronenworth’s ensuing groundball, causing the Rockies’ second baseman to let the ball bounce off his glove. Machado followed with a single before France grounded into a double play and Merrill struck out.