DENVER — That was almost exactly the way to beat a bad team.
Then the Padres’ bullpen surrendered seven runs in the final two innings and closer Robert Suarez had to come in and earn a save by getting the final two outs.
After building an 11-run lead by getting a bunch of hits and getting some help, the Padres held on for a 13-9 victory over the possibly historically horrible Rockies on Friday night at Coors Field.
“Absolutely textbook,” Shildt said of how the 13-2 lead was built. “… One through nine, great contributions. Every single guy in the lineup took quality of bats. I loved the approach. … Hungry, kept adding on. That’s what good offenses do.”
Of the final two innings, Shildt said tersely, “I don’t know what to chalk it up to. They swung the bats and they came back, and Suarez came in and closed it out.”
The Rockies fell to 6-32, which is tied with the 1988 Orioles for the worst start in MLB history.
It was the third time in two days that Colorado allowed at least 10 runs in a game, following their 10-2 and 11-1 losses to the Tigers in a doubleheader Thursday.
That is not the Padres’ problem, and they did what they had to do in their first game of the season at a ballpark that has been inhospitable to them over the years.
Their 16 hits were a season high, as were their 13 runs. And that was more than enough for Randy Vásquez, who allowed six hits and two runs in six innings. However, it was barely so after three Padres relievers let the game get tense between the eighth and ninth innings before Suarez came in and got an inning-ending double play on the third pitch he threw.
With some occasional help from the Rockies, who committed three errors and one big mental mistake, the Padres (24-13) scored in five different innings.
The began the game with four singles and got one run out of it. An error and a bloop single started the third inning, and the Padres scored four times. They added five runs in the fifth, though the error the Rockies committed in that inning didn’t contribute to the scoring. Two runs in the sixth came courtesy of a mental error and a physical error by the Rockies. The Padres’ final run was manufactured on a simple double and RBI single.
Singles by Fernando Tatis Jr., Luis Arraez and Manny Machado put the Padres up 1-0 before an out was made. An infield single by Jackson Merrill loaded the bases.
But Xander Bogaerts hit a 106 mph line drive at first baseman Michael Toglia, who caught it and threw to second to double up Machado before Jake Cronenworth ended the inning with a strikeout.
Vásquez took just nine pitches to get through the first inning and 14 pitches — plus a throw home and a somersault – to get through the second.
A double by Hunter Goodman began the bottom of the second, and Goodman went to third on a one-out single by Mickey Moniak to put runners on the corners with one out.
Kyle Farmer then hit a dribbler back to the left side of the mound that Vásquez ran to grab with his bare hand and throw home in time to get Goodman, who had been running on . After letting go of the ball, Vásquez tripped and tried to steady himself over the course of many steps backward before giving in and somersaulting backward in the grass in foul territory.
He jumped up quickly and returned to the mound stretching his shoulders.
That brought out manager Mike Shildt and athletic trainer Mark Rogow. After a brief discussion and a couple pitches, Vásquez remained in the game.
Tatis’ grounder to shortstop should have started the third inning with an out. Instead, it clanged off Farmer’s glove. Arraez followed with a flare that fell between Farmer and left fielder Jordan Beck, and Merrill followed Machado’s strikeout with a double off the left field wall to drive in Tatis. Boagerts lined out again, this time to a leaping Ryan McMahon at third base, before Cronenworth walked to load the bases and Gavin Sheets hit a double down the left field line to clear them and make it 5-0.
Toglia hit a home run that cleared the tall wall in right-center in the fourth before the Rockies gave that run back in the fifth.
That would be as close as the game got.
With runners on first and second with one out in the fifth, Cronenworth beat out a double-play grounder on which second baseman Adael Amador’s throw bounced wide of first base and into foul territory, allowing Machado to score.
An RBI single by Sheets, an RBI single by Jason Heyward and two-run homer by Martín Maldonado followed to put the Padres up 10-1.
After Arraez singled and Machado doubled to start the sixth, Merrill hit a soft grounder that Toglia fielded and went to throw home before turning and running toward first base. But he had paused long enough that Merrill beat him to the bag. Machado went to third on the play and scored on Bogaerts’s sacrifice fly, on which center fielder Brenton Doyle’s throw home beat Machado by several steps but was dropped by Goodman, the catcher, as he swiped the tag.
McMahon led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run before Vásquez completed the inning and his night.
Brandon Lockridge’s double and Cronenworth’s single gave the Padres a 13-2 lead in the eighth.
After a scoreless seventh inning by Yuki Matsui, the Rockies batted around and scored five runs off Sean Reynolds (four) and Wandy Peralta (one) in the eighth. Peralta allowed a single to start the night and was replaced by Alek Jacob, who got one out but then saw the Rockies score twice.
“That’s obviously not an ideal sitution,” Cronenworth said. “But we got the win.”
