The San Diego Padres are meeting the Colorado Rockies for the first time this season on the heels of back-to-back series wins.
It took the San Diego Padres until the seventh inning to break through, but the team rode four-run seventh and ninth innings to secure a series victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates on Wednesday.
Pirates right-hander Mitch Keller was strong through six shutout innings, allowing three hits and a walk with four strikeouts before righty reliever Justin Lawrence entered the game and allowed three earned runs on three hits with two strikeouts in the seventh.
Designated hitter Nick Castellanos put the Padres on the scoreboard with a two-run double that scored third baseman Miguel Andujar and shortstop Xander Bogaerts before second baseman Jake Cronenworth broke the game open with a two-run home run to score Castellanos and go up 4-0.
Padres right-hander Michael King produced a quality start, pitching into the seventh inning while allowing two runs on four hits and three walks with four strikeouts to earn his first win of the season.
After the Pirates got two back on King in the bottom half of the seventh, left-hander Kyle Hart and right-handers Jeremiah Estrada and Mason Miller shut the door and didn’t allow another run.
The Padres would go on to add four more in the top of the ninth after the sloppy Pirates committed its third error of the game and San Diego held on to win the game 8-2 and the series 2-1.
The Padres now set its sights on the Colorado Rockies, a National League West division rival, for a four-game home series. Both teams are 6-6 but have had extremely different seasons.
The Rockies have been one of MLB’s worst teams over the past few seasons and are coming off a 43-119 record, nearly the worst team ever (the 2024 Chicago White Sox lost 121 games), but have been one of the better offensive teams in 2026 to the surprise of many.
Colorado is tied for third in stolen bases (14), tied for sixth in home runs (12), seventh in slugging percentage (.386), ninth in batting average (.246), tied for 10th in RBI (51) and 11th in OPS (.692) through 12 games.
San Diego is on the opposite side of the spectrum and have been one of the worst offenses in baseball through the early going. The Padres have been scoring more recently, but it needs its top stars to heat up. Right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. is hitting under .200 with an OPS of .544, center fielder Jackson Merrill is hitting .200 with a .628 OPS and third baseman Manny Machado is hitting .206 with a .753 OPS but a lot of his damage has been drawing walks.
The Padres will have right-hander Randy Vasquez toe the rubber in the series opener against Rockies righty Jimmy Herget.
Vasquez has been lights-out through two starts and carries a 0.75 ERA and 1.00 WHIP through 12 innings of work. He threw six scoreless innings and allowed two hits and three walks with eight strikeouts against the Detroit Tigers as well as six one-hit innings with six hits, one walk and three punchouts against the Boston Red Sox.
Herget will act as an opener and has appeared in five games, allowing one run on four hits with six strikeouts over six innings.
First pitch is at 6:40 p.m. PST on MLB.TV.