Road show: Chatwood quiets Padres' bats

May 4th, 2016

SAN DIEGO -- Evidently, Tyler Chatwood feels right at home when he's pitching on the road.
The Colorado right-hander tossed eight scoreless frames against the Padres at Petco Park on Wednesday, running his road shutout streak to 24 2/3 innings. Jake McGee took care of the ninth for the Rockies, who won 2-0 after scoring twice on balls that were hit less than 90 feet -- a Cristhian Adames RBI groundout in the fifth and a DJ LeMahieu safety squeeze in the ninth.
The shutout, which prevented the Padres from sweeping the three-game series, was the Rockies' third this season. Chatwood, who lowered his road ERA to 0.33, has started them all, and exuded a self-assured aura to his teammates.
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"That's where you want to be as a pitcher, so to have that backing behind you gives me confidence," Chatwood said. "But the biggest thing is we want to go out there and win games."
Padres starter Cesar Vargas pitched six innings and wasn't as crisp as he was in his first two big league starts. But he still put together a very solid outing, allowing a run on four hits and three walks. Vargas became just the second pitcher in Padres history to begin his career with three straight starts in which he allowed one run or fewer, joining Odrisamer Despaigne. Still, the Padres were held scoreless for a league-leading eighth time.
"I think the perspective is that it's two series [wins] in a row against two division teams," said Padres manager Andy Green, whose club also took two games from the Dodgers over the weekend. "We don't want to get shut out. Nobody wants to get shut out. You want to come out here and put runs on the board. You want to win baseball games. We didn't do that today. But we won two out of three this series, we won two out of three last series."
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Second is as far as you get: The Padres didn't make it as far as second against Chatwood until Brett Wallace's two-out double in the seventh. Knowing a base was open, Chatwood pitched around Melvin Upton Jr., fell behind Alexei Ramirez 2-0, then cooly ended the threat by working a grounder to short. More >

"We didn't really create many opportunities to score today, didn't have a lot of chances," said Green. "We had one chance on the Brett Wallace double. Other than that it didn't feel like we were threatening too often. We've got to put ourselves in position to score."
Gotcha: With no one out in the seventh, pinch-runner Gerardo Parra broke for second base. Rockies catcher Tony Wolters hit a liner to left, but the Padres middle infielders mimicked a double-play ball, and Parra slid into second. In the meantime, Upton made the catch, and he completed an easy double play with a throw to first.

Squeeze for me: Knowing Chatwood had reached his limit, Rockies manager Walt Weiss sent LeMahieu to hit for him with runners at first and third in the eighth. Weiss said using LeMahieu didn't telegraph the plan to squeeze bunt.
"With DJ you can do multiple things," Weiss said. "If he doesn't get the bunt down, you can hit-and-run. You have options.

"Chatty, I thought he did his job. And especially chasing down that foul ball [from Alex Dickerson with two out in the eighth], with him and [Mark] Reynolds colliding, I thought whatever he had in the tank was probably gone."
Nice play, Jay: Padres center fielder Jon Jay made sure the Colorado lead stayed at 1, when he robbed Arenado of extra bases in the top of the eighth. Arenado hit a rocket to the center-field wall, where Jay leapt to make a great catch, taking away an insurance run, maybe two.

QUOTABLE
"It was a tough series offensively. I know it's baseball, but it was strange. We had just come out of a series in Arizona where we really played well offensively. But that's the nature of the game. Their staff did a nice job, too." -- Weiss on the Rockies struggling, but winning for just the seventh time in their last 27 games at Petco Park.
"Vargas was outstanding again. If you take away anything from this game, you take away the fact that out of nowhere we plucked a starter from the Yankees organization, who has now given us three very good starts." -- GreenMore >
SOUND SMART WITH YOUR FRIENDS
The Padres have struggled in series finales, running their record to 0-9 in such affairs this season. As you'd expect that's not something that concerns Green too much.
"I wouldn't have even known that if you didn't tell me," Green said. "Every day is equally important. You definitely want to win the last game of the series; you want to win the first game of the series tomorrow, too."
COULD'VE BEEN WORSE
Rockies first baseman Ben Paulsen, who didn't play Wednesday, was smoked hard enough on the right forearm by a foul ball from Wolters that the Rockies took precautionary X-rays, which luckily didn't reveal any break in the bone.
"It hurts … It probably would've hit me in the chest," Paulsen said.

WHAT'S NEXT
Rockies: Lefty Chris Rusin (1-0, 1.69 ERA) carries a 14 2/3-inning scoreless streak into the opener of a four-game series with the Giants at AT&T Park on Thursday at 8:15 p.m. MT.
Padres:Colin Rea (2-1, 4.61 ERA) takes the hill as the Padres open a four-game series against the Mets at 7:10 p.m. PT on Thursday at Petco Park. Rea, who has been very good when he's been efficient, is looking to build off an impressive outing in Los Angeles, during which he tossed six innings and allowed two runs.
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