Padres manager Andy Green told Franmil Reyes that he’d have the winning hit Thursday night.
Reyes sure did, and in a big way. The rookie hit his first career walkoff homer with two outs in the 13th inning to give the Padres a 3-2 victory over the Colorado Rockies.
Reyes connected to left-center on a 1-1 pitch from Bryan Shaw (4-6) for his 12th homer. It was only the sixth hit for San Diego. The Rockies had only three hits against seven Padres pitchers.
“I actually told him before the game that he was going to get the game-winning hit. I probably say that to a lot of bench guys,” Green said. “It doesn’t always happen like that. He said we were going to score 10 runs. I was right, he was wrong. But a great at-bat. The way that ball was hit I didn’t think it was going out but he had enough to get it out to a big part of the park late at night. It was a great swing.”
Reyes, who entered as a defensive substitution in the 11th, said it felt “very, very good. Really excited. I really wasn’t looking for a pitch. I was picking and choosing my zone. I focused on one little zone. If he throws it there, it was the damage I was looking for. The pitch I homered on, it was just hanging. I see it really clear.”
The Padres had two other chances to win it before Reyes finally did. They had runners on first and second with no outs in the 11th and failed to score. Rookie Luis Urias, who went 3 for 5 against Seattle on Wednesday in just his second big league game, popped up a bunt, and Wil Myers grounded into a double play.
They had runners on first and second with one out in the ninth before Hunter Renfroe grounded into a double play.
Myers committed three errors at third base and struck out three times. The Padres had 16 strikeouts.
The Rockies stranded 11 runners.
Robert Stock (1-1) pitched three innings for his first major league win, allowing just one hit and one walk.
“It’s a great feeling for us to take games away from these playoff contenders because to us it feels like big, important games because we know for them it’s big, important games,” said Stock, a 28-year-old rookie. “It’s extra sweet against a team that’s in our division.”
Rockies starter German Marquez struck out a career-high 13 in eight innings while allowing two runs and two hits, with one walk.
“I just wanted to keep the game close,” Marquez said. “Close enough that we had a chance to win, and I was feeling good and I was going for it.”
Colorado trails Arizona by 1 1/2 games in the NL West after the Diamondbacks beat the Dodgers 3-1 on Thursday night. Los Angeles is two games behind Arizona.
“It was just a bad night,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “That’s what you chalk it up to. … It just wasn’t a good night offensively, for both teams. We shut them down, they shut us down, there were pitches being made. We just didn’t have the big hit at the right time. We threatened a couple times, but we couldn’t get the hit.”
Rookie lefty Eric Lauer, who came off the disabled list to make the start, held the Rockies hitless on 81 pitches through five innings before manager Andy Green turned it over to another rookie, Trey Wingenter, with the Padres leading 2-1.
Wingenter walked Trevor Story opening the sixth and then allowed a single to right by Matt Holliday. He struck out Carlos Gonzalez before Story scored on a fielder’s choice by Ian Desmond to tie the game at 2.
The Padres remain the only team in the majors without a no-hitter.
Lauer, who had been on the DL with a strained left forearm, struck out two and walked two.
The Padres took a 2-0 lead in the second when Austin Hedges hit his first career triple to bring in Renfroe and then scored on Freddy Galvis’ sacrifice fly.
The Rockies got an unearned run back in an ugly fourth inning for the Padres, when Lauer hit Story with a pitch and then walked Holliday with one out, followed by consecutive two-out errors by Myers, who recently was moved from the outfield to third base. Myers’ first error allowed Story to score, and his second error loaded the bases before Lauer struck out Marquez to end the inning.
UP NEXT
Rockies: RHP Antonio Senzatela (4-4, 5.24) has made four appearances against San Diego this year, going 1-0 with a 6.14 ERA.
Padres: Rookie RHP Brett Kennedy (0-2, 7.58) is scheduled to make his fifth career start.
AROUND THE MAJORS THURSDAY
— Lorenzo Cain hit a home run off the top of the left field fence in the 11th inning and the Milwaukee Brewers, a day after winning a slugfest that went extras, edged the Cincinnati Reds 2-1. NL batting leader Christian Yelich went 0 for 4 with a bases-loaded walk for Milwaukee. On Wednesday night, Yelich went 6 for 6 and hit for the cycle as the Brewers outlasted Cincinnati 13-12. The playoff-contending Brewers totaled just six hits in their latest victory.
— Wade LeBlanc pitched seven scoreless innings, Mitch Haniger hit his 23rd home run and the Seattle Mariners jumped on the Oakland Athletics early and held on for a 7-1 victory. Robinson Cano had two hits and an RBI after being dropped down a spot in the batting order after second baseman Jean Segura was scratched. Dee Gordon and Ryon Healy added two hits apiece.
— David Peralta hit a three-run homer in the fifth inning and the NL West-leading Arizona Diamondbacks defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-1 in the opener of a pivotal series. The loss snapped the Dodgers’ five-game winning streak.
— Victor Martinez hit his second home run of the game and Niko Goodrum followed with a homer off Dellin Betances in the ninth inning, rallying the Detroit Tigers past the New York Yankees 8-7. The Tigers, last in the majors in home runs, connected five times and ended a five-game losing streak. Giancarlo Stanton hit his 300th career home run for the Yankees, who have lost three of four.
— Jackie Bradley Jr. hit a sacrifice fly in Boston’s four-run seventh inning and a tiebreaking single in the ninth, helping the Red Sox beat the Chicago White Sox 9-4 on Thursday night. Ian Kinsler sparked the winning rally with a one-out single off Thyago Vieira (1-1) for the last of his three hits. Blake Swihart then walked before Bradley drove in Kinsler with a liner into right field. Boston increased its AL East advantage to 8 1/2 games over the New York Yankees.
— Andrew Heaney threw six scoreless innings, Andrelton Simmons capped a four-run sixth inning with a three-run double and the Los Angeles Angels beat the Houston Astros 5-2. Heaney scattered five hits with six strikeouts to earn his first road win since Sept. 2, 2015, at Oakland.
— Harrison Bader and John Gant hit back-to-back home runs, Gant pitched into the sixth inning and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 5-0. The Cardinals have won 17 of 21 and took their tenth consecutive series, their longest series winning streak since 2009, when they also won ten in a row. Pirates starter Joe Musgrove opened the game with 21 consecutive strikes, a first in the majors since pitch tracking began in 1988, according to Stats.
— Tommy La Stella hit the first pinch-hit homer of his career against his former team, carrying the Chicago Cubs to a 5-4 victory over the Atlanta Braves in a matchup of NL division leaders. Chicago stopped off at SunTrust Park for a single game before the start of a regularly scheduled 10-game road trip, making up a contest that was rained out on May 17
— Jason Kipnis hit a three-run homer that broke a sixth-inning tie and sent the Cleveland Indians over the Minnesota Twins 5-3. The AL Central-leading Indians opened a 14-game lead over second-place Minnesota. Cleveland is 31-11 against division opponents, and needed this win to beat the Twins 10-9 in the season series.