Rockies defeat Padres 7-4 behind strong start from Bettis

The Rockies returned from the road to the friendly confines of Coors Field for the last time in 2015 on Friday, and they kicked off their final homestand of the season with a convincing 7-4 victory over the San Diego Padres.

Chad Bettis was nothing short of Rad over his five innings of work, allowing just four hits and one run while striking out six and walking one en route to his eighth victory of the season. His counterpart, Ian Kennedy racked up his fifteenth loss of the season, despite turning in a very solid performance himself. Kennedy went six innings and allowed four runs (three earned) on six hits.

The Rockies struck first when Corey Dickerson singled home Nolan Arenado in the second, and Dustin Garneau made the score 3-0 when he doubled to score Dickerson and DJ LeMahieu.

Bettis allowed his one run in the third inning, when the Padres put runners on second and third with no one out. Bettis got a huge strikeout of Matt Kemp before allowing the run to come across on a ground-out by Melvin Upton Jr. He induced a ground ball from Jedd Gyorko to end the inning.

The Rockies got the run back on a Justin Morneau double in the bottom half of the inning, but San Diego again cut the lead to two when Wil Myers hit a solo home run into the bullpen off Justin Miller in the seventh, only to see the home team tack on three runs in the bottom half of the frame. Jose Reyes had a two-run single and Nolan Arenado drove in his 112th run of the season to give the fans tacos and the Rockies a 7-2 lead.

Things got a little dicey when the Padres scored two runs in the eighth on a single by Cory Spangenberg and a throwing error by Charlie Blackmon, but Jairo Diaz got out of the inning without further damage and John Axford worked a relatively quiet ninth for the save.

Lost in the shuffle tonight is the fact that Justin Morneau hit his second triple since coming off the disabled list. Baseball is still full of surprises.

The Rockies now only need to win their final nine games of the homestand to avoid a losing home record. They'll continue the quest tomorrow as Yohan Flande takes on Robbie Erlin at 6:40 PM.

<iframe src="http://www.fangraphs.com/graphframe.aspx?config=0&static=0&type=livewins&num=0&h=450&w=450&date=2015-09-18&team=Rockies&dh=0" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" height="450" width = "450" style="border:1px solid black;"></iframe><br /><span style="font-size:9pt;">Source: <a href="http://www.fangraphs.com/livewins.aspx?date=2015-09-18&team=Rockies&dh=0&season=2015">FanGraphs</a></span>

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<th colspan=2>Roll Call Info</th>

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<tr><td width=150>Total comments</td><td>294</tr>

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<tr class="alt"><td>Story URLs</td><td><div><a href="http://www.purplerow.com/2015/9/18/9355023/game-147-rockies-vs-padres-bettis-vs-kennedy">http://www.purplerow.com/2015/9/18/9355023/game-147-rockies-vs-padres-bettis-vs-kennedy</a></div>

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