Padres relentless in 21-0 rout of Rockies

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on May 10, 2025

Published in Baseball

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DENVER — It is something of a silly notion to assume a team will sweep a series.

This is the big leagues.

Right?

“I’m not big (on) ‘Win all three games.’ I’m more take care of business today,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “This is Major League Baseball. Coming in and winning a major league game is what we strive and prepare and compete to do every night.”

That is in line with what Shildt preaches to his team, and their play has most often represented that philosophy.

They had no mercy on the Rockies Saturday, pummeling a team threatening to become the worst in MLB history, 21-0, at Coors Field.

The shutout was pitched entirely by Stephen Kolek, who in his second career start became just the 28th pitcher ever to go the distance in a shutout at Coors Field.

After a 13-9 victory on Friday, the Padres are a game away from sweeping the Rockies for the second time this season.

The Padres built a 20-0 lead by scoring in each of the first six innings. They added their final run off Jacob Stallings, a Rockies catcher, in the eighth inning.

The Padres tied a team record with 24 hits and hit a season-high five home runs and won by more runs than any Padres team ever had.

Jackson Merrill had four hits. Luis Arraez, Elias Díaz and Gavin Sheets had three hits apiece. Arraez, Sheets, Jake Cronenworth, Jason Heyward and Fernando Tatis Jr. each drove in three runs.

Now, it was impossible to dismiss they were playing the Rockies, who fell to 6-33, tied with the 1988 Orioles for the worst 39-game start in history.

Saturday was the fourth consecutive game in which the Rockies allowed at least 10 runs, tying a franchise record and tied with several teams for the longest streak in 95 years.

It was also impossible to set aside the fact the game was played in the major leagues’ only mile-high ballpark.

Each of the past three times the Padres have hit five home runs in a game have come at Coors Field.

But it also hardly mattered who or where the Padres were playing.

But what happened Saturday night may have oddly demonstrated the Padres’ relentless approach almost as much as any of their one-run or comeback victories.

The night began with Rockies starter Bradley Blalock being unable to consistently locate the strike zone with a breaking or offspeed pitch and the Padres refusing to swing at anything except what they felt they could crush.

As they did Friday, the Padres jumped to a big lead quickly.

This time, they did it quicker and bigger.

Where they scored one run in the first inning and four in the third on Friday, they scored five in the first, one in the second and again in the third, eight in the fourth, four in the fifth and one in the sixth.

It was what continued to happen as they built the monster lead that was notable.

They were up 15 runs when Merrill ran full speed down the line trying to beat out a routine grounder. They were ahead by 16 when Sheets and Heyward busted down the line on successive ground balls to try to beat out would-be double plays. They were up by 19 when Cronenworth, fresh off the injured list and still with a fractured rib, on his right side, dove to his right to snag a ground ball and throw out a runner for the second out of the fifth inning. They head just pushed their lead to 20 when Cronenworth fouled off three two-strike pitches and worked a nine-pitch at-bat.

The Padres’ fifth home run was hit by Tatis in the fifth inning. He was replaced by Brandon Lockridge in the bottom of the inning.

Shildt would use pinch-hitters for Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts in the sixth, with the Padres up 19-0.

With the Padres up 12-2, he had pulled Tatis and Machado in the seventh and Bogaerts in the eighth on Friday.

That came perilously close to haunting the Padres when three relievers allowed seven runs over the final two innings.

There seemed little danger of anything like that happening Saturday. Rockies manager Bud Black started pulling starters after the fifth inning, and Padres pitcher Kolek was dealing.

He allowed five hits while getting through the game in 104 pitches.