Cal Quantrill, Rockies shut down surging Padres

Charlie Blackmon homered among his two hits, Brendan Rodgers also went deep, and the Colorado Rockies cooled off the streaking San Diego Padres with a 7-3 win in Denver on Friday night.

Rookie Jordan Beck had three hits to back starter Cal Quantrill’s solid start and end Colorado’s three-game losing streak.

Ha-Seong Kim and Xander Bogaerts homered and Jackson Merrill, Luis Arraez and David Peralta contributed two hits each for San Diego. The Padres are 19-5 in the second half of the season and three of those losses are to the two teams with the worst records in the NL — Miami and the Rockies.

San Diego loaded the bases with no outs in the first inning but Quantrill worked out of the jam without giving up a run, while Colorado took advantage of its chance in the bottom of the inning.

Blackmon led off with a walk, Ezequiel Tovar singled and, after a forceout, Ryan McMahon drove in a run with a single.

Rodgers then hit a 77-mph knuckleball into the seats in left to give the Rockies a 4-0 lead. It was his 10th of the season.

The Padres got a pair back in the second on Kim’s two-run homer, his 11th of the season, but Blackmon answered with his eighth home run in the bottom of the inning, a two-run shot to right.

Bogaerts led off the fourth with his sixth homer of the season to cut San Diego’s deficit to 6-3.

That was all Quantrill (8-8) allowed, as he gave up three runs on six hits and struck out five in five innings.

The Padres had a chance to get closer when Merrill tripled with one out in the sixth but Kim grounded into a double play to end the inning.

Colorado added another run in the sixth when Michael Toglia doubled, moved to third on a groundout and scored on Beck’s third hit of the game.

That was all for starter Matt Waldron (7-10), who allowed seven runs on nine hits and struck out six in 5 2/3 innings.

–Field Level Media