With a 3-1 defeat to the Padres in the series opener on Monday at Coors Field, the Rockies joined some bad company.
Colorado became the first team to trail in each of its first 23 games of the season since the Reds did so in 1931. Cincinnati finished in last place in the National League that year, and the Rockies appear destined for the same fate.
And so it goes for the Rockies, who extended their franchise-worst start to 5-18 on a night where Padres right-hander Dylan Cease was nearly unhittable as the Colorado offense sputtered again.
“At some point it’s got to turn where we’ve got to get the bat to the ball and get some big hits,” manager Bud Black said. “There’s really no secret. We’ve got to do a better job. … We’ve got to bunch (hits) together, and we’ve got to do it as a group.”
In defeat, the Rockies didn’t homer for the fourth consecutive home game, their longest streak since 2017. The one-run output also marked a franchise-worst six-game home streak with three or fewer runs scored.
“It’s been tough sledding offensively, for sure,” Black said.
As Austin Gomber ran his pitch count up through the first few innings, the Padres finally plated a run on him in the third. José Azócar led off with a single, and then eventually scored on Jurikson Profar’s two-out single to make it 1-0.
Meanwhile, Cease mowed down the Rockies.
He didn’t allow a hit through three innings before Charlie Blackmon finally laced a belt-high fastball off the wall in right-center to open the fourth. After Ezequiel Tovar’s sacrifice bunt, Ryan McMahon’s sacrifice fly to left brought Blackmon home to tie the game.
Gomber ended up settling back in and finished with that one earned run through five innings, on four hits, three walks and two strikeouts.
“I thought I had below-average stuff, and I was laboring through a bit, but I was able to make pitches when I needed to,” Gomber said. “I knew I had to minimize, maneuver through (traffic), because I knew that one crooked number was probably the end of it.”
Cease continued to roll through the seventh, facing just one batter above the minimum and ending his night with a strikeout of Elehuris Montero on a full-count, 97.8 mph fastball.
“(Cease) commanded his fastball a lot better than we thought coming into the game,” said Brendan Rodgers, who was 0 for 3. “He was attacking with that, and getting pretty good depth on the slider and the curveball. It’s a little funky, because he’s got a short arm (action) and the ball kind of just pops out.”
After Victor Vodnik threw up a pair of scoreless innings over the sixth and seventh, Nick Mears gave up the lead in the eighth. A two-out double by Padres catcher by Luis Campusano was followed by a single to right by pinch hitter Tyler Wade, and Campusano narrowly beat Sean Bouchard’s throw home.
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The next batter, rookie center fielder Jackson Merrill, singled through the left side of the infield to score Wade and suddenly San Diego had a 3-1 lead. It was a deficit the Rockies couldn’t make up against the Padres bullpen as Enyel De Los Santos and Robert Suárez shut them out to finish the game. Colorado got two runners aboard against Suárez in the ninth, but McMahon grounded into a double play to end the game.
In addition to the loss, it was another sparse attendance night in LoDo, at least by historical standards for a warm evening at Coors Field. The official count was 18,515, though it seemed less than that in a snappy two hour, 15 minute game. The Rockies ranked 16th in MLB in average home attendance at 26,462 coming into the game.
That crowd also witnessed another rough performance from Nolan Jones. The outfielder went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts to drop his average to .143. After a dazzling rookie year in 2023, Jones is now 0 for his last 26, with 11 K’s in that span.
“We’re going to get out of this,” Rodgers said. “We’ve battled the last couple games. We’ve been in some good ballgames, faced another good pitcher tonight, and we’re facing three more this series. We just have to keep battling.”
Noah Davis update. Black said the right-hander had an MRI on Monday to determine the severity of his shoulder injury, which forced his exit from the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader. Davis, called up from Triple-A on Friday, threw three innings before being pulled due to discomfort in his right shoulder.
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