The first innings woes struck once again for the Colorado Rockies as the San Diego Padres rode a four-run top of the first towards a 5-2 victory on Wednesday night.

Facing off against Ty Blach, making a spot start, Xander Bogaerts led off the game with a single followed by a walk to Fernando Tatis Jr. Jurickson Profar then drew a one-out walk to load the bases for Ha-Seong Kim who promptly laced a double to right field to score a pair of runs. A sacrifice fly from Jackson Merrill and a two-out RBI single from Eguy Rosario capped off the inning giving the Padres a 4-0 lead.

In the first inning, the Rockies have now been outscored 35-7 and have given up runs in the first frame in 16 games this season. It also continued an unfortunate trend in which the Rockies have now trailed in all 25 of their games to start the season, closing in on the 1910 St. Louis Browns who hold the modern-era record of 28 straight games.

Despite the rough first inning, Blach managed to wrangle in the Padres for the next four innings. The Padres would pick up two singles in the second and that would be it. Blach ended up going five innings, allowing four runs on five hits with two walks and no strikeouts on 76 pitches.

The Padres would tack on one more run in the sixth inning against Victor Vodnik when Profar led off with a single and advanced to third after Kim attempted a sacrifice bunt that Ryan McMahon ended up sailing past first base on the throw. Merrill then hit a groundball to second that scored the ran and he was initially called safe, but was called out after the Rockies challenged the play.

The key to the Padres win was the wonderful starter from Matt Waldron. The lone primary knuckleballer in baseball, Waldron throws the pitch roughly 30% of the time and was set to make his first start at Coors Field. He sat the Rockies down in order through his first three innings of work but ran into a little bit of traffic in the fourth inning. A pair of walks to Ezequiel Tovar and McMahon along with a single from Elias Diaz would load the bases with one out but Waldron escaped the jam with a pop out of Elehuris Montero and a ground out of Brenton Doyle.

Matt Waldron, Gorgeous Knuckleball. 😍 pic.twitter.com/7HTT1H0iMl

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 25, 2024

The Rockies’ lone piece of damage against Waldron came in the bottom of the sixth when McMahon belted his third home run of the season to right center field.

Sheesh 😤#Rockies x @Toyota pic.twitter.com/TZMtH5hqqu

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) April 25, 2024

On the night, Waldron tossed a career-high six innings while allowing one run on four hits with five strikeouts and three walks while inducing eight groundball outs.

Matt Waldron with a strong performance tonight.

6 IP (a career high)
4 hits
1 ER
5K’s
3 BB
pic.twitter.com/yf2U4QWObO

— Allison Edmonds (@aedmondstv) April 25, 2024

The Rockies would manage to add one more run in the eighth courtesy of a home run from Diaz as part of a 2-for-4 night that led the team.

Díaz to the fountains! pic.twitter.com/NQYaIvuFJe

— Colorado Rockies (@Rockies) April 25, 2024

The Rockies tasked the final three innings of the game to Rule-5 draft pick Anthony Molina. In his first two games, Molina had allowed 10 runs in 3 1/3 innings. Since then, however, he has allowed just one run through seven innings as he continues to develop at the big-league level.

On the night the Padres tallied eight hits with Kim going 2-for-4 to lead the way. They struck out just once and drew three walks. The Rockies had five hits while striking out six times against three walks.

Up Next

Dakota Hudson (0-4, 5.06 ERA) makes his fifth start of the year and aims to work deeper into the ballgame. In his last start he threw 91 pitches over four innings, giving up four runs on seven hits and walking five batters. He will face off against Randy Vasquez who will make his second start of the year. In his last outing, Vasquez tossed five innings, giving up four runs (one earned) against the Toronto Blue Jays.