Padres stun Rockies with late comeback

[June 11, 2016]  DENVER -- The San Diego Padres stunned the Colorado Rockies in the ninth inning Friday night, stringing together four straight two-out hits to win 7-5.

The last of those hits was a mammoth three-run homer by Wil Myers that gave the Padres just their third win when trailing after eight innings in 35 games this season.

While the end was jubilant for the Padres, the beginning seemed ominous when starter Andrew Cashner left after six pitches with upper back and neck tightness. But Luis Perdomo pitched a career-high 5 2/3 innings in the longest outing by a reliever in the majors this season and kept the Padres bullpen in order until they struck in the ninth.

The uprising came against closer Jake McGee, who since his last blown save May 7 had converted his past eight opportunities and 15 of 17 this season.

The Rockies scored a run in the eighth on Mark Reynolds' two-out single off Kevin Quackenbush (3-2) to give McGee some breathing room. He gave up consecutive two-out singles and Jon Jay's ground-rule double into the left-field corner on a seven-pitch at-bat. The ball landed on the warning track and took a sideways bounce into the stands, costing the Padres a run.

They were down to their last strike when Myers drove McGee's 3-2 fastball an estimated 451 feet over the wall in center for his 13th homer this season and sixth this month. He had a sacrifice fly in the second to finish with four RBI, giving him 15 this month.

"Those are fun games to come back in," Padres manager Andy Green said. "You're down to your last out. You got nobody on base. You're down two runs to a great closer on the mound and you string together three consecutive hits and kind of have a bad break on Jon Jay's swing that turns into a ground-rule double over a 25-foot fence in the corner."

It hardly mattered that the left-handed hitting Jay was facing a left-hander in McGee. Jay was 24-for-69 (.369) against lefties this season when he stepped in against McGee.

"He is so good against left-handed pitching," Green said. "I know that defies the wisdom of the day."

Fernando Rodney pitched the ninth and extended his scoreless streak to 19 consecutive innings while earning his 12th save.

McGee had 12 consecutive scoreless outings before Friday and had allowed two homers in 21 innings in his previous 23 appearances.

"I was staying away too much," McGee said. "They were just aggressive. Maybe next time I'll have a game plan to go inside more to aggressive guys. Just a few singles and a hit down the line and it snowballed a bit."

Rockies starter Jon Gray gave the Rockies seven solid innings, allowing four hits and three runs (one earned) with no walks and seven strikeouts. He has pitched at least seven innings in three of his past four starts and has a 2.31 ERA in that stretch with seven walks and 29 strikeouts.

He allowed a home run to Melvin Upton Jr. in the fourth that gave the Padres a short-lived 3-2 lead and gave up two runs in the second that were unearned because of catcher Nick Hundley's throwing error.

"The whole game was a battle," Gray said. "Didn't really feel like I had my best stuff. Just tried to mix (pitches) as much as I could and get bad swings."

Green said Cashner's upper back and neck were tight during his warmup before the game. So Perdomo was told to start stretching -- but not throw -- when Cashner took the mound.

He struck out Charlie Blackmon, threw a first-pitch ball to DJ LeMahieu and was taken out by Green.

"I'm not sure what this means going forward," Green said. "He's got some tightness. We'll see how he wakes up tomorrow and figure out what we need to do."

After taking over for Cashner, Perdomo gave up an infield single to DJ Lemahieu followed by Nolan Arenado's two-run homer, his 19th of the season.

"It was his best poise. It was his best effort," Green said of Perdomo, a 23-year-old rookie acquired in the Rule 5 draft last December. "It was huge for us to get a hundred pitches out of him. He preserved the rest of the guys in the bullpen so we could match up."

NOTES: Padres RHP Erik Johnson joined the team and will make his San Diego debut when he starts Saturday. The Padres acquired Johnson in the June 4 deal that sent RHP James Shields to the Chicago White Sox. ... Rockies RHP Adam Ottavino, who underwent Tommy John surgery in May 2015, began a rehab assignment with High Class A Modesto and threw 21 pitches in two-thirds of an inning. He allowed two hits and two runs with one walk and one strikeout... Rockies C Tony Wolters (concussion) went 2-for-4 and caught the entire game for Triple-A Albuquerque in his first rehab game. ... Padres RHP Jon Edwards (right flexor strain), who has been sidelined all season, underwent PRP and stem cell injections in his elbow followed by a rehab of 8-to-10 weeks in hopes he can pitch by the end of the season and avoid Tommy John surgery.

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