Padres 1, Rockies zilch.
This one’s going to leave a mark, especially since the Rockies wasted a superb start by Kyle Freeland.
The Padres won in walk-off fashion Monday night in San Diego on Jurickson Profar’s game-winning double off struggling right-hander Carlos Estevez to score pinch-runner Jorge Mateo from first. Mateo was running for Greg Garcia, who led off the inning with a pinch-hit single.
The Rockies (20-21) fell back below .500 and currently sit in ninth place in the race for eight playoff spots. They have 19 games left in the season.
Estevez pitched on Friday and Sunday in Los Angeles, giving up four runs on four hits (including two home runs) in just one-third of an inning Friday and two runs on two hits on Sunday against the Dodgers. He now has a 6.41 ERA.
Mychal Givens (2.16 ERA), meanwhile, shut down the Padres in the eighth, striking out Mitch Moreland and Austin Nola, although Givens did give up a walk to Wil Myers. Givens needed just 16 pitches, so did Black think about sticking with Givens in the ninth?
“No,” Black said. “He had pitched back-to-back nights as well and his pitch count was up a little bit in his inning, and I think that was good for Mychal. Carlos pitched yesterday, he had a day off the day before. So the way we handled the pitching was the way it was supposed to go.”
Actually, Givens had pitched on Friday and Sunday in L.A., not in back-to-back games.
The Rockies had limited opportunities to score and couldn’t come up with a big hit when they needed it. In the ninth, Trevor Story led off with a single off Drew Pomeranz and stole second, putting Story in scoring position. But Charlie Blackmon fouled out, Nolan Arenado popped out to center and Kevin Pillar struck out. End of the mini-rally.
Freeland gave the Rockies everything they needed, throwing six scoreless innings, giving up three hits (all singles), striking out six and walking three. He left the game having thrown 99 pitches (56 for strikes). Black said Freeland had “hit the wall” and so he did not bring him back out for the seventh.
The Padres’ Dinelson Lamet, unleashing his nasty slider, dominated the Rockies for 7 2/3 scoreless innings, striking out 11 and allowing six hits. He did not walk a batter and whittled his ERA down to 2.24.
The Rockies were actually fortunate to be in the game into the ninth.
“The Great Escape” is a classic 1963 World War II film, starring Steve McQueen, but it applied to the Rockies in the seventh. The Padres loaded the bases on a rare throwing error by seven-time Gold Glove third baseman Nolan Arenado, followed by a single by Profar. A delayed double steal put men on second and third and reliever Yency Almonte drilled Fernando Tatis Jr. to load the bases.
Arenado redeemed himself when he gloved Manny Machado’s broken-bat liner and fired to first to double-up Tatis for an inning-ending double play.
Freeland’s money pitch this season has been his changeup, but it was his fastball, curve and especially his slider, that confounded the Padres.
“It was a different plan of attack,” he said. “It was the third time I had faced them in the last (few) weeks. In my second start against them, they sort of sat soft on me and I could see that. So we changed up the game plan and got them back off balance throwing with hard action (inside) to get them off the soft stuff away.”
Freeland was 2-1 with a 2.87 ERA over his first six starts this season but posted no decisions with an 11.37 ERA over his last two outings. The fact that Freeland was able to climb out of his mini-slump was a good sign for the rest of the season. He likely has three more starts.
“Kyle has that capability to do some things, to change his game, which I think is the mark of a developing young pitcher,” Black said.
The Padres stressed Freeland in the fifth. Tatis Jr. worked a one-out walk, stole second, and then took third on catcher Tony Wolter’s throwing error — his first of the season. Freeland, looking like the pitcher who finished fourth in the National League Cy Young Award voting in 2018, struck out the dangerous Machado with a slider and finished off Mitch Moreland on three pitches, whiffing him with another mean slider.
Story, who managed a one-out double off Lamet in the sixth, tipped his cap to the Padres’ young right-hander.
“He’s really good, he’s really effective,” Story said. “He has plus-plus stuff. He did his thing tonight and kept us off-balance.”
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