The Colorado Rockies battled all night, grinding through tough at-bats before finally breaking through with two late runs — making the walk-off home run that followed all the more painful. Juan Mejia gets tagged with the loss and Mason Miller picked up the win for the Padres.
Pitchers set the tone early
Tomoyuki Sugano and Walker Buehler traded control early, each working efficiently through the first few innings in a game that quickly took on a low-scoring, tightly contested feel.
Sugano delivered a solid six-inning outing,
allowing four hits and two runs while striking out three without issuing a walk on 81 pitches (52 strikes). He mixed his arsenal effectively throughout the night, leaning on his splitter and varying speeds to keep Padres hitters off balance, while also inducing seven ground ball outs.
After navigating early traffic and escaping a key jam in the third, Sugano ran into trouble in the fifth, where two mistakes were both punished for home runs.
Those swings accounted for all of San Diego’s early offense and ultimately proved pivitol in a game with little margin for error. To his credit, Sugano responded with a clean sixth inning to keep Colorado within reach.
Buehler, meanwhile, was efficient and composed, holding the Rockies to three hits over six innings without issuing a walk while striking out four on just 68 pitches.
A ‘light’ offensive game
For much of the night, neither offense generated much impact. The Rockies, in particular, struggled to produce anything resembling sustained pressure, and their lineup felt notably lighter without Hunter Goodman in the starting lineup.
Colorado finished with eight hits — all singles — and no player recorded more than one hit. They struck out a manageable seven times but drew only one walk.
Padres strike first on the long ball
In a game defined by limited offense early, it was power that broke the deadlock.
Gavin Sheets opened the scoring in the fifth with a solo home run to deep right-center:
while Luis Campusano also went deep:
Those two swings accounted for all of San Diego’s runs through eight innings and highlighted a known challenge for Sugano, whose otherwise strong outing was undone by the pair of mistakes.
Rockies finally break through with scrappy eighth
After seven innings of quiet offense, the Rockies finally found life in the eighth — and did it the hard way.
Brenton Doyle sparked the inning with an infield single and was methodically moved into scoring position on a pair of groundouts from Brett Sullivan and Kyle Karros. With two outs, Goodman, pinch hitting, lined a single up the middle to score Doyle and cut the deficit to 2–1.
Tyler Freeman followed with another base hit, and the inning came full circle when Beck stepped to the plate. After being picked off earlier in the inning in what looked like a costly mistake, Beck delivered in the biggest moment, lining a two-out single to right field. Third base coach Andy González waved Goodman home, and he sprinted around third before diving headfirst across the plate just ahead of the tag to tie the game at 2-2 and cap a remarkable turnaround.
Bullpen keeps it tied — briefly
Antonio Senzatela followed Sugano with a strong initial inning, showcasing both velocity and a full pitch mix before running into command issues in the eighth. After recording a momentum-shifting strike-’em-out, throw-’em-out double play, he issued a walk and was lifted as the inning grew tense.
Adrián Morejón absorbed the eighth-inning damage for San Diego before Jason Adam recorded the final out. Miller then struck out the side in the ninth, overpowering the Rockies with triple-digit velocity.
Another late heartbreak
Any momentum the Rockies carried into the ninth quickly disappeared against Miller, but the bottom half proved decisive.
After a leadoff single and a walk put immediate pressure on Juan Mejía, the inning quickly turned into a high-wire act. Mejía recorded a key out on a deep fly ball that allowed the winning run to advance to third, but the margin for error had vanished.
Moments later, Sheets ended it.
Sheets crushed a pitch deep to right-center for a three-run, walk-off home run — his second of the night — scoring Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado and sealing a 5-2 Padres victory.
Beck’s redemption
Beck’s night encapsulated the volatility of baseball.
After a frustrating sequence earlier in the seventh inning that included a successful ABS challenge and a subsequent pickoff at second base, Beck found himself back in a defining moment — and delivered. His game-tying hit transformed what could have been a night defined by a mistake into one defined by resilience. Is it a step in the right direction?
Final thoughts
In a game defined by fine margins, the difference ultimately came down to a handful of swings.
The Rockies showed resilience, clawing back with a scrappy eighth inning and getting contributions up and down the lineup. But three home runs from San Diego — including one final, decisive blast — proved too much to overcome.
Even in defeat, the effort was there: gritty, competitive, and just short of enough.
Up Next
The Rockies are back at it again against these same San Diego Padres tomorrow evening.
They’ll face former Rockie Germán Márquez at 6:40 p.m. MT, a familiar face now standing in the way as Colorado looks to respond after two painful finishes. The Rockies will counter with Ryan Feltner, making his third start of the season.
After back-to-back walk-off heartbreaks, the Rockies have shown they can fight. Now they have to prove they can finish.
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