DENVER — The Padres saw their eight-game winning streak snapped with a 9-3 loss to the Rockies on Tuesday night at Coors Field.
That eight-game streak matched the season high they had previously set in April — marking the first time in franchise history that the Padres have turned in multiple winning streaks of at least eight games in the same season. But, again, they couldn’t quite make it nine.
Here’s some instant reaction from Colorado:
Funny how quickly things can turn in a playoff race.
Late Monday night, the Padres were moments away from extending their lead over the Diamondbacks for the final Wild Card spot in the National League to 3 1/2 games. But Corbin Carroll hit a two-run walk-off homer to beat Miami.
Twenty-four hours later, the D-backs were then on the verge of cutting the deficit to a mere 1 1/2 games — before former Padres prospect Esteury Ruiz hit a three-run double in the 11th inning, sending the Marlins to a victory that kept the Padres’ edge at 2 1/2 games.
Nonetheless, San Diego missed a glorious opportunity in its quest for home playoff games. Both the Cubs and Phillies had lost, and the Padres could’ve moved even with both in the loss column.
Instead, they trail the Cubs by 1 1/2 games and Philadelphia by one game — without the tiebreaker against either club. They’d need to jump both in order to secure home games in a Wild Card Series. Which is to say: It might require another lengthy winning streak like this one.
“It’s disappointing when you lose,” said manager Craig Stammen. “Don’t get me wrong, it feels like we should win every game. But it is important to look and remember how these guys have played over the last two weeks. They have played great, and they’ve put everything on the line.”
Still, with so much at stake, there wasn’t much time for the Padres to appreciate the streak that was.
“Yeah, I felt good yesterday,” said Fernando Tatis Jr., who led off the game with a monstrous 455-foot home run. “Not today though. That’s just the honest answer. Like I said, we just clean it up, and we start building again tomorrow.”
It finally caught up to them …
The Padres have ridden their high-leverage relief arms hard lately. And make no mistake: They would do it again. It won them eight straight games, after all.
But at some point, all that high-leverage usage was going to come with a cost. The Padres had played four games in four days in which they grabbed a big lead, then had to hang on for dear life in the later innings. The bill came due on Tuesday.
When Walker Buehler required 92 pitches to get through 4 2/3 innings, San Diego only had lower-leverage options available to cover those middle innings. Wandy Peralta escaped trouble in the fifth, but created more of it in the sixth. He allowed four of the first five hitters to reach base, as the Rockies grabbed the lead. Then, it was Randy Vásquez’s turn.
With two outs, Vásquez dueled Cole Carrigg for 13 pitches. He fouled off 10 of them. The 13th of those offerings was a belt-high fastball. Carrigg turned on it and launched to the right-field seats for his second homer of the night.
The Rockies had a four-run lead they wouldn’t relinquish. The glass-half-full view of things? The Padres could at least give those high-leverage relief arms a breather for one night.
“Wasn’t our night as the game went on tonight,” Stammen said. “Their offense kept going and got to our bullpen.”
The Padres might have stumbled onto something in their season-long search for a No. 2 hitter.
On Tuesday night, Stammen gave Austin Hays the nod. Hays has crushed Kyle Freeland (and typically crushes lefties in general). Sure enough, leading off the fifth inning, Hays took Freeland deep, giving the Padres a 3-2 lead. That was the end of the night for Freeland.
Which raised the question: If you’re going to lift Freeland with nobody out in the fifth … why not do it before Hays? But here’s the thing: What was the other option? Dustin Harris has been crushing righties. If the Rockies went to righty reliever Ryan Feltner, Stammen pinch-hits with Harris.
The Padres have the platoon edge either way. Meanwhile, in the middle innings, they’re either going to get a favorable matchup with multiple looks at that day’s starting pitcher or they’re going to get into the opponent’s bullpen early. Win-win.
The counterargument, of course, is simply putting your four best hitters — Tatis, Manny Machado, Ty France and Jackson Merrill — in the top four spots, getting them as many at-bats as possible. But there’s no denying that the Padres have thrived with this version of a lineup — Tatis at the top, then another hitter separating him from the three other mashers in the middle.
So, if you don’t have an obvious option at No. 2, why not play for the best matchups possible? (Not to mention that strategy might become even more viable if you get Miguel Andujar and Gavin Sheets back from the injured list in the coming weeks. Andujar, who played his sixth rehab game with Triple-A El Paso on Tuesday night, might not be all that far away.)