Jon Gray bounced back nicely from an opening day loss. He did it crisply, too.
Gray pitched seven scoreless innings, Trevor Story and Ian Desmond each had a big two-run hit and the Colorado Rockies beat the San Diego Padres 5-2 on Wednesday night.
Gray (1-1) shut down the Padres a night after they won 8-4 behind rookie Christian Villanueva’s three home runs and five RBIs. Gray retired Villanueva in three straight at-bats, including a strikeout. The right-hander struck out seven and walked none before three relievers finished up.
The combined six-hitter took just 2 hours, 41 minutes, and neither team used a mound visit.
Gray got on a roll and worked quickly.
“When things are working really fast, if you’re getting guys out on one or two pitches, I mean, the inning can be over like that,” he said. “You don’t even know it. It’s a lot of fresh, good pitches in your mind that you just made, and it’s a lot easier to make the next one like that.”
Gray allowed only two baserunners through the first five innings.
It was a much better outing than on opening day, when he gave up three runs and six hits in four innings during a loss at Arizona.
“Jon bounced back, for sure,” Rockies manager Bud Black. “Stayed pretty poised throughout the game within his delivery. Fastball had life, good slider. I liked the fact that the curveball came into play as the game went on. He needs that. We’ve talked a lot about the velocity variance. That was big for him.”
Cory Spangenberg had two of the Padres’ four hits off Gray.
Jake McGee allowed a hit and two San Diego runs in the eighth, one of them unearned due to his error. Bryan Shaw gave up an RBI single to Hunter Renfroe, but Wade Davis closed in the ninth for his third save.
The Rockies hit Clayton Richard (0-1) hard in scoring all their runs in the first two innings. Story’s broken-bat, two-run double that bounced over the left-field wall highlighted the three-run first, when the Rockies also got an RBI double from Nolan Arenado.
Desmond’s two-run single with the bases loaded highlighted the second. Arenado was thrown out by Matt Szczur trying to go from first to third on the play.
Pitching with the lead helped Gray.
“He’s a pretty good front-runner,” Black said. “I like that. Like in a horse race, man. If you get the lead as a horse, sometimes you finish it. I’ll keep an eye on Jon, but hopefully he’s a good front-runner — catches the lead and keeps going.”
Padres manager Andy Green said Gray “didn’t create many opportunities to score early on. There’s been times when we’ve gotten to him and times we’ve had a lot of trouble with him. He’s kind of had that history for them where he’s out there in some outings and he’s absolutely dominant and he’s had other outings where we get to him. Today was one of those days we just didn’t get pressure on him early.”
Richard, who tossed seven strong innings against Milwaukee on opening day, allowed five runs and eight hits in five innings. He struck out six and walked three.
“It wasn’t terrible but wasn’t great,” Richard said. “A little bit of a spray the first couple innings. Then unfortunately the balls that were in play were either hit hard enough on the ground or broken bat that was a double down the line.”
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“You look at those first three guys in their lineup,” Green said, referring to Charlie Blackmon, DJ LeMahieu and Arenado. “They’ve got two guys who are as good as anybody in baseball at the top and they’ve got another guy who’s won the batting title. You want to beat those guys. You’ve got to keep those three guys off base and that was our challenge the first two innings. Those three guys did the bulk of the damage and that’s usually the case with their offense.”
UP NEXT
Rockies: LHP Tyler Anderson starts the series finale Thursday afternoon. He allowed seven runs over 2 1/3 innings last Friday, including five in the first inning, but didn’t factor into the decision in a 9-8 loss at Arizona.
Padres: Rookie LHP Joey Lucchesi makes his second start. He gave up three runs and seven hits in 4 2/3 innings during his major league debut Friday night.
WEDNESDAY IN THE MAJORS
— The Braves have taken two out of three games against the Washington Nationals at SunTrust Park outside Atlanta, beating the Nats 7-1 on Wednesday. Mike Foltynewicz outpitched Max Scherzer and Preston Tucker hit a three-run homer. Foltynewicz allowed four hits, one run and two walks with eight strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings. Scherzer gave up six hits, two walks and five runs — two earned — in five innings. The three-time Cy Young Award winner struck out seven.
—Josh Reddick had three hits and Alex Bregman’s tiebreaking RBI single in the seventh inning lifted the Houston Astros to a 3-2 win over the Baltimore Orioles to complete a three-game sweep.
— Giancarlo Stanton has hit his first Yankee Stadium home run in pinstripes. The two-run shot in the first inning today led New York over the Tampa Bay Rays 7-2 to complete a two-game sweep. Aaron Judge and Gary Sanchez also hit two-run homers for the Bronx Bombers.
— Yoenis Cespedes homered, Amed Rosario hit a two-run triple and the Mets’ bullpen faced the minimum batters over five scoreless innings as New York downed the Philadelphia Phillies 4-2. New York swept a weather-shortened two-game series.
— Patrick Corbin shut out the Los Angeles Dodgers on one hit over 7 1/3 innings, striking out a career-high 12 in the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 3-0 win. The Diamondbacks swept the three-game series and won their ninth straight game against the Dodgers.
— Shohei Ohtani hit his second homer in two games at Angel Stadium in the fifth inning of the Los Angeles Angels’ 3-2 victory over the Cleveland Indians. Zack Cozart added a walk-off homer in the 13th inning. The Angels’ Japanese two-way rookie connected for a game-tying, two-run homer off AL Cy Young winner Corey Kluber in his second game at the Big A.
— Brian Dozier homered for the third straight game, Miguel Sano drove in a pair of runs and the Minnesota Twins handed the Pittsburgh Pirates their first loss of the season with a 7-3 victory at frigid PNC Park. Dozier’s blast was his fourth home run in four days.
— Matt Davidson hit his fourth home run of the season and Jose Abreu added a tiebreaking solo shot in the eighth inning and the Chicago White Sox snapped the Toronto Blue Jays’ four-game win streak with a 4-3 victory.
— Pablo Sandoval splashed a three-run homer into McCovey Cove while making a rare start, Johnny Cueto earned his first win of the season and the San Francisco Giants jumped all over Seattle ace Felix Hernandez in a 10-1 rout of the Mariners. Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford and Gorkys Hernandez also homered for the Giants.
— Carlos Martinez pitched into the ninth inning and struck out 10, Yadier Molina homered and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the error-prone Milwaukee Brewers 6-0. The Cardinals beat their NL Central rivals a night after losing on a game-ending homer by Ryan Braun.
— Sean Manaea pitched three-hit ball over eight innings and the Oakland Athletics beat the Texas Rangers 6-2 on Wednesday night. Jed Lowrie had a two-run single in a four-run fourth. Matt Chapman singled twice and scored two runs, and Bruce Maxwell added an RBI double for Oakland. The A’s had lost four of five since winning on opening day.
| Thursday’s Games |
|---|
N.Y. Mets at Washington
Miami at Philadelphia
Colorado at San Diego
Cincinnati at Pittsburgh
Arizona at St. Louis
Chicago Cubs at Milwaukee
Tampa Bay at Boston
Texas at Oakland
Detroit at Chicago White Sox
Seattle at Minnesota
Baltimore at N.Y. Yankees