One walk-off was something. Two consecutive walk-off moonshots is something else entirely.
Gavin Sheets was the hero of last night’s game after belting a three-run dinger about as deep as the Friar Faithful have seen a ball go in Petco Park. The crazy part: it wasn’t even his first homer of the game.
Luis Campusano provided another solo shot to give the San Diego Padres a two-run lead. That lead was preserved by a sterling outing from starter Walker Buehler until Adrian Morejon gave up two runs to the Colorado
Rockies in the eighth inning, setting the stage for the dramatic finale.
The Friars are now on their second three-game win streak of the season, and will push for four tonight (as well as the series win over Colorado).
Taking the mound
Ryan Feltner (COL) v. Germán Márquez (SD)
The Rockies No. 5 starter has been off to a semi-decent start, with a 4.32 ERA across 8 1/3 innings. He’s spent his entire career in Colorado, never finishing with an ERA under 4.00.
Feltner is working back from an injury-plagued 2025, having only pitched in six games last year. After a solid, albeit short, first start to the year, he gave up four runs against the Houston Astros on Monday.
The Padres who have batted against him have raked, with a combined .348/.423/.391 slash line. If Feltner can’t fix that now, San Diego will crush him.
Márquez will face his longtime former club for the first time since signing with the Friars this offseason. He had a rough debut with San Diego that now feels like a blip after he pitched five shutout innings against the Pittsburgh Pirates on Monday.
If Márquez can follow that up against the Rox, it’ll go a long way to soothing rotation worries in San Diego.
Batter up!
The San Diego offense continues to be all-around spectacular, with contributions from Campusano and Sheets leading the way last night. Facing the right-hander Feltner will likely see the Friars use a similar lineup to yesterday, with some minor tweaks:
- Ramón Laureano, LF
- Fernando Tatis Jr., RF
- Jackson Merrill, CF
- Manny Machado, 3B
- Xander Bogaerts, SS
- Gavin Sheets, DH
- Nick Castellanos, 1B
- Freddy Fermin, C
- Jake Cronenworth, 2B
Even with Campusano’s great offensive production lately, Fermin has been the primary starter and they’ve mostly swapped back and forth in the backstop role.
Castellanos was benched yesterday in favor of the hot-hitting Miguel Andujar but will likely give Sheets a rest in the cold corner. That being said, Sheets’ bat is far too good to stay out of the lineup so he’ll probably get a DH day.
San Diego’s production at the plate has been wonderful lately. If they can keep that rolling against the Rockies’ No. 5 man tonight, they’ll cruise to a series victory.
Relief corps
Buehler had a fantastic outing, and boy did he need it. With his job on the line after allowing more runs (7) than he innings pitched (6 2/3), he needed a vintage outing. He delivered with a scoreless six innings, limiting Rockies batters to three hits.
That kept a (relatively) depleted bullpen mostly fresh, with manager Craig Stammen opting to use Kyle Hart in the seventh inning. Morejon came out for the eighth and blew the lead, giving up two runs on four hits.
That’s largely been the story for Morejon for the beginning of this year, with him struggling to a 10.80 ERA, giving up nine runs (eight earned) in only 6 2/3 innings. He’s yet to prove himself to be the dominant reliever he was from 2024-25 (2.42 ERA, 137.1 IP).
With Morejon unable to get out of the inning, Stammen turned to Jason Adam as the right-hander made his 2026 debut. He was easily able to get the out and stop the bleeding. The stranger thing was him not returning to the mound for the ninth.
Instead Stammen went to closer Mason Miller, who’s now pitched three games straight. It was odd given that it was not a save situation, and Adam had only thrown five pitches. Whatever the case, it ended up working out for San Diego, but Miller will likely be unavailable for tonight’s game.
In his stead the Friars will have Ron Marinaccio, David Morgan, Wandy Peralta and Bradgley Rodriguez. The quartet will hope for a clean outing from Márquez, but all four are capable of covering more than one inning if necessary.
