Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. homered, and the surging San Diego Padres won their eighth in a row with an 8-7 victory over the Colorado Rockies in Denver on Monday night.
Ty France and Jackson Merrill had three hits each, Jake Cronenworth finished with two hits and Mason Miller earned his 37th save for San Diego (82-68), which moved a game within Philadelphia for the second National League wild card.
Cole Carrigg homered among his two hits and Hunter Goodman also had two hits before leaving the game in the seventh inning with right thumb soreness for Colorado (55-95). Jake McCarthy, Connor Norby, Kyle Karros and TJ Rumfield also had two hits each for the Rockies, who have lost eight straight.
Machado’s solo homer in the first, his 28th, gave the Padres a 1-0 lead. Colorado answered in the bottom of the first on Rumfield’s RBI single
San Diego jumped on starter Tomoyuki Sugano in the second. Merrill led off with a single, Xander Bogaerts walked and Cronenworth drove home Merrill with a single. Bogaerts scored on Freddy Fermin’s sacrifice fly and Tatis followed with a 449-foot blast to center field to make it 5-1.
It was his 22nd home run of the season.
The Padres tacked on another run in the third when France doubled and scored on Merrill’s single.
That was all Sugano (12-10) allowed in his five innings.
The Rockies cut into the lead in the fifth when Connor Norby doubled, Goodman walked and Rumfield flared a single to left to bring home Norby. Casey Mize (6-9) got the next two batters to finish his night after allowing two runs on eight hits over five innings.
Colorado rallied in the sixth on McCarthy’s two-run triple, and he scored on a groundout. France’s RBI single in the seventh gave San Diego a two-run lead but Carrigg answered with a leadoff homer in the bottom of the inning, his eighth.
Dustin Harris made it 8-6 with an RBI double in the eighth but Norby matched that in the bottom of the inning to cut the deficit to one again.