SAN DIEGO — Three teams in three days stood atop the National League West this week, a divisional carousel of competition that nearly nightly sees a new twist. The Rockies, Dodgers and Diamondbacks are trading blows even in separate cities.
But only one team in the NL West has a winning record against the Rockies this season: the Padres.
“Honestly, the Padres give us a hard time more than the other teams,” Colorado third baseman Nolan Arenado said. “You can’t take them lightly.”
Friday at Petco Park, the distant fourth place Padres twice hit two-run homers off Colorado rookie right-hander German Marquez in a come-from-behind 8-5 victory in front of 20,932 fans. The Padres have won four of seven games against the Rockies.
And Colorado lost a fifth game in its past seven.
“The games that we’ve lost,” Colorado manager Bud Black said, “we haven’t had good starting pitching.”
Boxscore:
After the Rockies raced to an early three-run lead, Austin Hedges’ homer to the overhang in left field put the Padres ahead 4-3. Yangervis Solarte’s 421-foot shot in the fifth put them ahead 6-4. Wil Myers added a solo homer in the seventh.
“They had a good day,” Marquez said. “They capitalized on mistakes I made.”
Marquez’s pitching line confused easy explanation. He struck out a career-high nine batters and walked just one over five innings. And he threw 61 strikes to just 19 outside the zone — the kind of positive ball-strike ratio that Colorado manager Bud Black loves.
Marquez also allowed six runs on eight hits, including a messy fourth inning, when he walked Ryan Schimpf to lead off, threw a wild pitch to move him over, then threw a 1-0 fastball so directly down the middle only a protractor could have measured the dangerous perfection.
“Fastball command wasn’t there and they took advantage of it,” Marquez said.
The 22-year-old snapped his personal four-game streak of wins in his starts, a run that lowered his May ERA to 2.64. But in the fourth, Francy Cordero hit a hard come-backer that Marquez tried to bare-hand. It bounced away from him as he winced in pain.
“It’s a little sore, it’s a little swollen now,” Black said of Marquez’s right hand. “So we’ll see how it sets up tomorrow.”
Arenado doubled twice to take the major-league lead with 19 doubles this season. But he did not score on either trip to the bases. His line-drive single to left field in the third scored DJ LeMahieu. Arenado scored on Ian Desmond’s subsequent single to center. But the Rockies’ 3-0 lead disappeared.
“These are the games you overthink a little more than when you play a team like the Dodgers,” Arenado said. “Because you don’t want to let up. You have to remind yourself, those are major-leaguers over there too, and you have to respect them.”
