DENVER — All good things must come to an end, they say.
So Coors Field was as fitting a locale as any for the Padres’ run of eight straight victories to be snapped, especially given their curious struggles against the NL’s worst team.
Joe Musgrove pitched into the fifth inning in his second start off the injured list, but a taxing third-inning at-bat wore him down, the Rockies added on against the bullpen and the Padres’ bats managed little against a 23-year-old rookie in a 3-2 loss on Sunday afternoon.
It’s the Padres’ first series loss since losing dropping two of three to the Braves at Petco Park going into the All-Star break.
The series wins the Padres have collected since then include division leaders and apparent playoff-bound teams like the Guardians and Orioles and Dodgers.
But the Rockies?
They finished their 2024 slate against the Padres with an 8-5 record after a 7-3 win here on Friday and allowing little damage outside Manny Machado’s eighth-inning homer to cut the Rockies’ lead to a single run.
Reliever Tyler Kinley retired the side in order after Machado led off the eighth with his 19th home run.
Rockies closer Victor Vodnik stranded a one-out walk on Jurickson Profar’s game-ending groundout.
Making just the second start of his career, right-hander Bradley Blalock pitched into the sixth inning, allowing one run on six hits and three walks while striking out just two.
The Padres’ lone run off the rookie — whom they faced earlier this year as a Brewers reliever — scored in the third when David Peralta’ made up for a gaffe in right field with a game-tying double to left-center.
A half-inning earlier, Joe Musgrove had jumped in place on the grass off the first-base side of the mound as a high fly ball down the right-field line fell safely in foul territory.
Peralta had been tracking the ball as he ran in, but he appeared to momentarily lose it while staring into the sun, allowing Aaron Schunk to stretch a costly 10-pitch at-bat into 12.
The back-and-forth between Musgrove and the Rockies’ rookie shortstop included eight foul balls before Schunk yanked a double to left, scoring Jordan Beck from first base.
The Schunk at-bat alone was longer than both Musgrove’s nine-pitch first inning and 10-pitch fourth.
By the time, he was pulled after 4⅓ innings, Musgrove was sitting on 73 pitches (47 strikes), up from 63 in his first start back from elbow trouble.
Musgrove walked two, hit a batter, allowed just three hits and struck out six, including Sam Hilliard to start the fifth inning for his 1,000th career strikeout.
Bryan Hoeing stranded two base-runners to get out of the fifth inning, but the Rockies scratched across two in the sixth off him, including an unearned run that came around to score on a Hilliard groundout after Peralta couldn’t cleanly field Jacob Stallings’ go-ahead single to right.
This rulebook error allowed Michael Toglia — who had been intentionally walked to set up a double play after Brenton Doyle’s leadoff triple — to move up a base to third and ultimately score on Hilliard’s groundout.
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