The Rockies and Padres played another extra inning marathon on Thursday but unlike September 2007 and April 2008, the Padres came out on top. Franmil Reyes hit a two-out solo home run in the bottom of the 13th to give San Diego a 3-2 victory. Despite just three hits the Rockies left 11 men on base, including two each in the 10th and 11th innings, continuing the offensive malaise. With the Diamondbacks winning the Rockies find themselves 1.5 games out of first place in the NL West.
Germán Márquez, ladies and gentlemen
What else is there to say about an eight inning, two hit, one walk, 13 strikeout performance? It was clear from the onset that Márquez was dealing, striking out nine Padres through four innings. Between a fielding error in the third inning and a walk to lead off the eighth, Germán retired 13 hitters in a row, and even got three straight outs to finish off the eighth. He was dominant, which was needed on a night where the Rockies went nine innings with just one hit.
Márquez finishes with a career-high 13 strikeouts. He is the fifth pitcher in club history to strike out 13 or more batters in a game, joining Jon Gray (16, 9/17/16 vs. SD), Ubaldo Jimenez (13, 5/3/10 at SD), Shawn Chacon (13, 6/7/01 vs. HOU) and Darryl Kile (14, 8/20/98 at MON). https://t.co/kvaLh13tcb
— Rockies PR (@RockiesPR) August 31, 2018
If defense wins championships...
...then neither team was going to win any championships tonight. The only blemishes on Márquez came in the second inning, when he had Austin Hedges down 0-2 before he hit a ball to center that should have been a single but Charlie Blackmon misplayed it for an RBI triple. The next better, Freddy Galvis, then made it 2-0 with a sacrifice fly. The indomitable Nolan Arenado also committed an error, but Márquez escaped the inning with no damage.
Meanwhile, the Padres committed two errors in the fourth inning, one of which directly led to a Rockies run when Ian Desmond hit a ground ball to third baseman (?) Wil Myers who couldn’t make the play, allowing Trevor Story, who walked, to score. MyEEErs committed three errors on the night, including in the top of the 12th.
Mismanagement
It was not Bud Black’s most glorious night tactically. With the game tied at 2-2 in the sixth, Black replaced Matt Holliday with Gerardo Parra (who is hitting .195/.250/.195 since David Dahl was called up on August 5th) as a defensive replacement (Parra went hitless in three at bats). In the 11th, with one on and two out, Dahl (hitting .265/.342/.471 since his call up) finally came in to pinch hit for Tony Wolters, but was intentionally walked with first base open and Chris Iannetta on deck to hit for the pitcher (Iannetta grounded out to end the threat). Finally, rather than using a long reliever, Black opted for the “one-inning-at-a-time” approach to extras until it was just Bryan Shaw in the 13th, even though Jake McGee threw only 10 pitches the inning before. In all it was a perplexing night from the Rockies skipper.
Up Next
The Rockies and Padres will play game two of their four game set Friday night at 8:10 pm MT. Antonio Senzatela will face off against Brett Kennedy.