Entering Saturday's game at Coors Field the Padres were in 1st place in the National League West ... but they'd lost eight straight games in Colorado.
Going from sea level to 5,280 feet in the air is not exactly easy but that's a long losing skid for anyone, anywhere, and now it's on the brink of reaching double digits.
The last-place Rockies nipped the Padres again in a 5-4 win that, thanks to a 7-1 Dodgers win over the Guardians, dropped the Friars into 2nd place, half a game behind Los Angeles.
After hitting two home runs on Friday night C.J. Cron got another one on Saturday, a 2-run blast in the 1st inning off San Diego starter Nick Martinez to put the Rockies on top 2-0.
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The Padres cut the lead in half in the 3rd inning on a line drive single by Luke Voit to score Jake Cronenworth. In the 5th, Cronenworth led off with a double and scored when Manny Machado ripped his 12th homer of the year to left-center to give the Padres their first lead of the series at 3-2. Voit followed with a double and, two batters later, scored on a groundout by Noman Mazara and the Friars were on top 4-2.
In Denver, offense shows up in an instant.
In the bottom half of the inning Charlie Blackmon, who has been a thorn in the Padres side for the better part of a decade, launched a 2-run shot to right field off Martinez to tie it 4-4. After that it was a battle of the bullpens.
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That has been one of the few rough spots for the Padres in 2022.
In the 8th inning Luis Garcia gave up a solo home run to Ryan McMahon and that was enough. Daniel Bard handled a scoreless 9th to run the Padres losing skid in Colorado to nine games.
They send Blake Snell to the mound to try and end the mile-high misery on Sunday against Antonio Senzatela.
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