Rockies walk off vs. Padres after rain delay

DENVER -- Just when it seemed the Rockies were headed for yet another loss to the Padres, lightning struck. After the ninth inning was delayed 38 minutes by a storm of hail, rain and, yes, lightning, pinch-hitter Daniel Descalso capped off a ninth-inning comeback with a single to deep center for an 8-7 victory.
DJ LeMahieu, who earlier extended his on-base streak to 32 games and had a three-run double in the second inning, doubled off Brandon Maurer with one out and scored on Carlos González's two-out single. David Dahl then singled and Nick Hundley tied the game with a single. Then Descalso swatted a full-count fastball from Maurer over center fielder Travis Jankowski and to the wall. At-bats by Gonzalez, Dahl, Hundley and Descalso totaled 27 pitches. Dahl and Hundley were down, 0-2.
"Great at-bats in the ninth," Rockies manager Walt Weiss said.

The loss was the Padres' first in the last 144 games when leading after eight innings -- a streak that dates back to July 2014 and was a Major League record.
"The only reason I was aware was I was watching video of the closer earlier and they flashed that graphic during their last game," said Descalso, who stretched his winning at-bat to nine pitches. "But think of it: they had [Fernando] Rodney [now with the Marlins] most of the year and Maurer has done a great job."
• Descalso a vital veteran presence
Padres manager Andy Green said of Maurer, "He left pitches in the middle of the plate, was having a hard time with his slider putting people away. Too many fastballs away to a number of guys. At some point, you've got to do something different."
The Rockies, third in the National League West, improved to just 8-10 against the Padres, who are tied with the D-backs in last place. The Padres' Wil Myers had a two-run homer, and has five homers and 16 RBIs against the Rockies this year. But after Rockies starter Tyler Chatwood struggled (eight hits, seven runs in five innings), relievers Chris Rusin, Germán Márquez, Boone Logan and Adam Ottavino held the Padres scoreless the rest of the way as the Rockies mounted a comeback.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Twenty-five and dime: With his first-inning dinger, Myers became the first Padre in franchise history to record at least 25 homers, steals and doubles in a single season. He joins Mike Trout -- who has done so twice -- as the only players in baseball to post 25-25-25 seasons in the past four years.
"It's something that's definitely pretty cool," Myers said. "I definitely didn't have that goal in mind when I started the season. But as I learned more about stealing bases, it kind of became one." More

Dahl comes up big: Dahl pinch-hit for the pitcher's spot in the ninth inning after playing sparingly recently with a sore left elbow. Maurer buried him in an 0-2 hole to start the at-bat, but he battled back to shoot an RBI single to left field to bring the Rockies within a run of the Padres.
"I got down 0-2 pretty quick and was trying to battle to pass it on to the next guy, and hoping he'd leave one over the plate," I wasn't really looking at the result, just trying to put a good at-bat together.
Yard-inas: Sardinas launched his second homer as a Padre in the top of the sixth inning, giving the Friars their seventh run, which would prove decisive. Since coming over from the Mariners in a trade last month, Sardinas hasn't stopped hitting. He's batting .324/.392/.493 in that time.

Home, unkind home: Chatwood had held the Padres to one run and five hits in 6 2/3 innings at Petco Park on Sunday. But that was on the road, where he is 7-1 with a 1.77 ERA in 11 starts. But the Sardinas homer, which came one batter before he left with no outs in the sixth, left his home performance in 14 games at 4-8 with a 6.12 ERA.
"The biggest thing that hurt me was that I got the lead and went out there and walked two guys, and in this ballpark you can't do that," Chatwood said. "And I paid for it tonight."

QUOTABLE
"Tonight was just another example, but the whole season, offensively, we've never made excuses -- weather, schedule, whatever. We treat every at-bat like it's a big at-bat." -- LeMahieu, whose 3-for-5 night left his batting average at .349, tied with the Nationals' Daniel Murphy for the NL lead

"It wasn't icing us per se. We just didn't come out and execute in the ninth." -- Green on whether the hail impacted the final result

AFTER FURTHER REVIEW
The Rockies got out of a potential jam in the fifth inning by challenging the ruling that Myers was safe at second base on an attempted stolen base with two outs. After a review, the umpires overturned the call, as Myers beat the throw, but failed to touch second base with his lead foot when Cristhian Adames tagged him.

 WHAT'S NEXT
Padres:Edwin Jackson has been sharp since making a small mechanical fix to the end of his delivery two starts ago. He's allowed two runs in those past two outings. Jackson takes the hill for the middle game of this three game set on Saturday, with first pitch slated for 5:10 p.m. PT.
Rockies: Rookie Right-hander Jon Gray will look to get back at the Padres at 6:10 p.m. Saturday at Coors Field. In his last start, San Diego tagged him for six runs (five earned) over four innings with three walks and eight hits given up. Gray has given up five or more runs in four of his last seven starts.
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