Sheets plays hero on 30th birthday as Miller keeps streak intact

DENVER - Padres closer Mason Miller slammed the door emphatically against the Rockies, sealing a 10-8 victory Thursday at Coors Field to salvage their sixth straight series win over Colorado after trailing most of the day and securing his ninth save in nine opportunities.

The Padres opened the ninth inning trailing 8-5, but a haunting leadoff walk and four straight hits capped by a three-run birthday blast over the out-of-town scoreboard in right field by Gavin Sheets quickly turned the tide as the Friars took a 10-8 lead.

The come-from-behind rally set the stage for Miller to close out the ninth. He induced a grounder from Tyler Freeman before yielding a single to Troy Johnston, setting up a game-ending 5-4-3 double play off the bat of Ezequiel Tovar.

Though he’s been making his way to the upper echelon of Padres pitchers on a march that started Aug. 6, 2025, and is the longest active streak in the Majors, Thursday’s save saw Miller crack the Top 10 of all Major League relief pitchers since the Expansion Era began in 1961, extending his historic run to 33 2/3 scoreless innings over 31 regular-season games.

“He was able to do it in Coors Field,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “That's not an easy spot to throw a scoreless inning. We had a lot of really good pitchers come in the games over the last three days and [they] weren't able to come out with a scoreless inning. Giving up one run in Coors Field is actually a good inning, in my mind. That's limiting the damage. He came in in a big situation in the ninth and closed it down for us.”

The Rockies took an early lead in the first frame and only trailed for a half inning in the second before reclaiming the lead and hanging onto it until the ninth.

Rockies reliever Victor Vodnik came in to face Fernando Tatis Jr. in the eighth, striking him out to end the inning. He then gave up five runs before recording an out in the ninth.

The capper came from Sheets, who pinch-hit in the eighth and celebrated his 30th birthday with a 379-foot game-winning homer in the ninth.

“That was pretty wild, the way the guys spilled out of the dugout,” Stammen said of the celebration around Sheets. “That was reminiscent of a Winter Ball game, World Baseball Classic game. It was cool to see the energy from our guys and that they were locked in, that they could come back and believed in it.”

Sheets echoed that sense of belief, though he came short of saying the Padres had Colorado right where they wanted them, down three in the top of the ninth.

“Definitely not, but I felt positive,” Sheets said. “We had the meat of our lineup up, and I knew we had guys who are gonna do damage.

“The biggest thing is the belief that we have in the clubhouse and the dugout,” Sheets continued. “That's the biggest difference with this team this year – we’re not going to lay over, we're going to fight. We truly believed we were gonna win that game, and it was pretty cool to see it happen.”

Once the Padres scored the first two runs in the top of the ninth, Miller started warming in the ‘pen, and when he toed the rubber in the bottom of the inning, the game was as good as done.

Miller is now tied at eighth with Chris Short from the 1963-68 Phillies (who made 216 appearances in that span, but only 33 in relief) and Cla Meredith, the Padres’ all-time leader, who posted his streak in 2006.

Still, Miller wasn’t ready to celebrate his work in progress.

“Tying something’s cool, but obviously I want to go a little further,” Miller said. “Hopefully, I just keep rolling and keep doing what I'm doing.”

Not included in his streak are two scoreless 2025 playoff appearances, meaning he’s now gone scoreless in 34 of his 35 appearances in a Padres uniform.

Also not included are four more scoreless innings in the World Baseball Classic.

The longest scoreless inning streak in AL/NL history, going back to the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920, belongs to the Dodgers' Orel Hershiser (59 innings in 1988).

“It’s always good to bounce back,” Miller said after the Rockies took the series to the brink. “We're playing good baseball, winning a lot of series. That's the expectation. We celebrate our series wins, and then on to the next series and focus on that.”