Padres slug three HRs while pounding Rockies

Kyle Higashioka, Jurickson Profar and David Peralta each homered Sunday to back up Matt Waldron’s two-hitter over 5 2/3 innings as the San Diego Padres powered past the visiting Colorado Rockies 10-2.

Waldron (7-9) gave up just one run in his stint, walking two and striking out seven as he beat Colorado for the second time this year. The outcome marked San Diego’s fifth straight series win since the All-Star break and puts it into a tie with Atlanta for the National League’s first wild-card spot.

Cal Quantrill (7-8) absorbed the loss, permitting three runs off five hits and three walks in 4 1/3 innings with two strikeouts. The Rockies managed just five hits off four Padres’ pitchers and closed a 10-game road trip at 3-7.

Higashioka snapped a 1-1 tie in the bottom of the fifth, lining his 13th homer into the left field seats, just past the leap of Sam Hilliard. Two batters later, Profar cracked his 19th homer over the right field wall.

Peralta broke the game open in the sixth when he lined a three-run homer to right-center with Xander Bogaerts (hit batter) and Jackson Merrill (walk) aboard. It was Peralta’s third of the season.

Merrill gave San Diego a 1-0 edge in the second when he drilled a 3-2 pitch to the wall in right-center for a double. Running on the pitch, Bogaerts was able to beat the relay throw home.

Colorado tied the game in the fourth on Waldron’s only mistake, a hanging sweeper that Brenton Doyle lofted to the left field seats for his 19th homer. The Rockies managed just four other baserunners against Waldron.

Colorado’s other run came via Jacob Stallings’ solo homer, his seventh of the year and second in as many games, off Adrian Morejon in the seventh.

The Padres tacked on a run in the seventh when Manny Machado ripped a ground-rule double to score Profar, then got three more in the eighth. Jake Cronenworth’s double scored two and Machado added an RBI single.

–Field Level Media