DENVER (AP) — Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. homered, helping the San Diego Padres beat the skidding Colorado Rockies 8-7 on Monday night to match their longest winning streak this season at eight games.
San Diego (82-68) stayed 2 1/2 games ahead of Arizona for the final National League wild card and clinched a fifth straight winning season for the first time in club history.
Colorado has lost eight games in a row for the first time since August
2025 and is 5-21 since Aug. 16. The Rockies (55-95) must win at least eight of their last 12 games to avoid becoming the first team with four consecutive 100-loss seasons since the New York Mets from 1962-65.
San Diego is 9-1 against the Rockies this season and has won 19 of the past 23 meetings.
San Diego, which was outhit 14-13, led 6-1 in the fifth inning only for the Rockies to close to 6-5 in the sixth. Each team scored a run in both the seventh and eighth.
Mason Miller pitched a one-hit ninth for his 37th save in 39 chances. He is tied for the NL lead with St. Louis Cardinals closer Riley O’Brien.
Machado hit his 28th homer this season and the 397th of his career in the first, but TJ Rumfield had a tying single in the bottom half. Jake Cronenworth hit a go-ahead single in a four-run Padres second that included Freddy Fermin's sacrifice fly and Tatis' two-run homer, a 449-foot drive.
San Diego got run-scoring singles by Jackson Merrill in the third inning and Ty France in the seventh. Dustin Harris added an RBI double in the eighth. Merrill had his 14th three-hit game this year, tying his career best.
Casey Mize (6-9) allowed two runs and eight hits in five innings for his second win since being acquired from Detroit on Aug. 3.
Mize had no strikeouts for just the fourth time in 111 big league starts.
Tomoyuki Sugano (12-10) gave up six runs and eight hits in five innings, dropping to 0-5 in his last six starts.
Padres RHP Walker Buehler (8-6, 4.61 ERA) faces Rockies LHP Kyle Freeland (4-10, 6.37) in the second game of the series Tuesday.
___
This story has been corrected to fix the spelling of Tatis' name.
___
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
