Series recap: Padres rock Colorado, continue playoff push

They did not score until the ninth inning Monday. They were in early holes Tuesday and Wednesday. It did not seem to matter.

The Padres completed their fourth sweep of the season Wednesday, outscoring the Rockies, 20-8, in the series in moving 11 games over .500 for the first time since finishing the 2010 season with a 90-72 record.

That team missed the playoffs by two games.

This one is sitting on the NL’s second-best record and a plus-65 run differential that ranks second only to the Dodgers (plus-101) in the majors.

The scores

• Monday: Padres 1, Rockies 0 (Padres lose Eric Hosmer with fractured finger before walking off win against Rockies)
• Tuesday: Padres 14, Rockies 5 (Padres show Clevinger how they do things in Slam Diego)
• Wednesday: Padres 5, Rockies 3 (Padres, Zach Davies overcome Matt Kemp for sweep of Rockies)

Player of the series

Wil Myers

Imagine if the Padres had traded Wil Myers.

Oof.

He continued his 2020 rebound with a 6-for-11 series that included two homers, six RBIs and four runs scored.

The 29-year-old Myers homered twice in Tuesday’s laugher, including a first-inning grand slam to erase an early deficit. On Wednesday, his sixth-inning triple tied the game after the Rockies jumped ahead on a Matt Kemp homer. He later scored both the go-ahead run in that inning and an insurance run on Austin Nola’s eighth-inning single after logging a one-out double.

Myers is slugging .679 over his last 15 games and is hitting .302/.370/.624 with 11 homers and 31 RBIs through 41 games this year.

Pivotal moment

The Padres had suffered a loss before getting out of the first inning of the series when Eric Hosmer squared to bunt and had a pitch break his left index finger. There is hope for a quick return, but his replacement, Mitch Moreland, had not inspired a ton of confidence with a 4-for-24 start since his arrival from the Boston Red Sox.

That changed some Wednesday. Down 1-0 after Trevor Story’s first-inning homer in Game 3, the Padres had a runner on with the 35-year-old Moreland at bat. He took three balls, had the at-bat extended with a ball off the plate called a strike, then yanked the sixth pitch over the wall in right for his first home run as a Padre.

Yes, the series had already been won at that point. Yes, the Padres still needed another rally in the sixth inning to secure the sweep. But with Hosmer down, the Padres need production out of first base to sustain their roll and Moreland’s two-run homer was a reminder that his skills (1.177 OPS in 22 games with Boston) had not eroded overnight.

Not that anyone in the organization was at all concerned about Moreland’s sluggish start, but it was important to see some concrete evidence with Hosmer’s status in limbo.

Three takeaways

• ESPN’s “Stock Watch” now lists the Padres’ postseason odds at 100 percent. That’s not exactly a mathematical clinch (or is it?) and a lot can change between now (the Padres would have the No. 4 seed if the playoffs started today) and Sept. 27, but it’s clearly time to start thinking about postseason decisions. At the top of the list is who’s in a three-man wild-card rotation. The Padres didn’t trade for Mike Clevinger to not have him start important games, but at this point Monday’s effort proved Dinelson Lamet is the unquestioned No. 1 starter on this staff. Who is No. 2 and No. 3 is certainly debatable but you have to wonder if Zach Davies isn’t best suited to start a Game 2. Yo-yoing from Lamet’s 100 mph four-seamer/wipeout slider combo to Davies’ finesse game and back to Clevinger’s eclectic mix of both power and offspeed pitches could do quite the number on hitters’ timing, if the series even lasted that long.
• As slow as Moreland was to start his stay in San Diego, the transition for Nola has been rather seamless. The Padres’ new primary catcher is hitting .280/.379/.600 with two homers, six RBIs and four runs scored in his first seven games with the Padres. Equally as important, the Padres pitching staff has a 2.25 ERA in Nola’s 52 innings behind the plate, the best (albeit in still a rather small sample size) of anyone catching Padres pitchers this season.
• As Kevin Acee pointed on in Tuesday’s newsletter, two players who don’t get a lot of run starred in Monday’s walk-off win. First, pinch-hitter extraordinaire Greg Garcia, who hadn’t started this month, came off the bench and promptly singled to put the game-winning run on base. He was immediately lifted for pinch-runner Jorge Mateo, who went from first to home on Jurickson Profar’s double to right. We see unsung hero grab headlines every October. These two certainly qualify as names to keep an eye on as the Padres prepare for a playoff run.

What’s next

The Padres (28-17) continue a 10-game homestand against the NL West with a four-game set against the Giants (23-21), the new third-place team in the division. The Padres took two of three in San Francisco in July in their only series to date and have a 4½-game lead on a second-place finish in the NL West.