SAN DIEGO -- The Rockies simply can’t keep the good times going.
They arrived at Petco Park on the heels of taking two of three games at San Francisco -- their first road series win since April 23-24 at Detroit. But another, even-simpler task escaped the Rockies on Friday night.
Right-hander Chad Kuhl gave up eight hits and five runs -- five walks, also -- in just 4 1/3 innings of a 9-0 loss to the Padres in the opener of a four-game series that includes a doubleheader on Saturday.
The Rockies, a surprise team early but one that has largely struggled for the last month, have not won two straight games since home wins from May 4-5 against the Nationals. While the series win was welcome, since it was just their second in the last 11, it’s hard to begin a turnaround without stringing, or at least pairing, victories.
The task was tough against Padres righty Joe Musgrove (7-0), a teammate of Kuhl’s with the Pirates who challenged him to an in-game contest of tic-tac-toe in the dirt on the back of the mound.
Musgrove’s six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts lowered his ERA to 1.50.
“Joe’s obviously got a complete arsenal -- a true four-pitch guy,” said the Rockies’ Connor Joe.
Beating Musgrove became insurmountable when Kuhl, who rattled off six scoreless frames against the Braves in his last start, fought location on his secondary pitches. The poor outing broke a string of solid work from the rest of the rotation during the last turn through.
“I threw some OK ones,” Kuhl said. “They just really didn’t quite have the finish that I would’ve liked, especially early on when I had a couple of two-strike counts. I couldn’t quite put some guys away, or they would back up.”
One 2-2 slider ended up in the wrong place.
The Rockies were down, 2-0, in the third inning when Kuhl left his ninth pitch of the at-bat against Manny Machado over the middle and watched it sail into the left-field stands for a 3-0 Padres lead.
Already struggling and with little help from his offense, Kuhl became more scattershot. The most redeeming development was lefty long reliever Ty Blach eating innings. Blach absorbed four runs and five hits in 2 2/3 innings but mostly preserved the bullpen for Saturday’s doubleheader.