Photo via @Rockies/X

Eli Whitney | April 23, 2026

For eight innings on Thursday afternoon at Coors Field, the Colorado Rockies played some of the best baseball of their young season. Mickey Moniak hit two home runs. Troy Johnston had three hits. TJ Rumfield drove in two with a pair of doubles. The offense put up eight runs and fourteen hits against a San Diego staff that entered the series as one of the hottest in the majors. It wasn’t enough.

​The Padres scored five times in the ninth inning off Victor Vodnik, capped by a Gavin Sheets three-run home run that turned a 8-5 Colorado lead into a 10-8 San Diego victory. It was the seventh time this season the Rockies have lost a game in which they led, and it dropped them to 10-16 on the year. “I just didn’t do my job today,” Vodnik said afterward. “I’ve got to move forward with the positive note – the boys did a great job getting hits tonight. Mickey had an amazing game. We’re in these games, we’re competing. I just didn’t execute when I had to.”

​The collapse obscured what had been a genuinely impressive afternoon. Moniak’s first home run came in the first inning – a 386-foot shot to right off Matt Waldron to give Colorado an early lead – and his second came in the sixth off Adrian Morejon, a 429-foot drive to center that extended the Rockies’ advantage to 7-4. It was his fifth career multi-home run game and third of the season. He finished 4-for-5 with three runs scored. His hitting streak now stands at eight games – tying the longest by a Rockie this season – during which he is slashing .419/.455/.871. “He’s in a really good place offensively,” Schaeffer said. “But what he provides off the field is just as big as what he’s providing on the field.” Moniak himself was measured in the aftermath. “As bad as this one sucked, a .500 homestand against two good teams – we could have been over .500. Just got to put it behind us and keep moving forward.”

​The second inning was a showcase of the offensive identity this team has been building since the meeting in Houston. Jake McCarthy doubled. Edouard Julien singled him home. Moniak singled. Rumfield doubled to right, scoring two. Willi Castro walked. Troy Johnston singled home Rumfield. Four runs, five hits, and all nine starters came to the plate. The baton passed cleanly from one end of the lineup to the other. Waldron threw 82 pitches in five innings and left without completing the sixth, which was the goal from the first pitch. “Our offense played well all day,” Schaeffer said. “Kept going, didn’t stop.”

​The game turned on a leadoff walk to Jackson Merrill to open the ninth. Manny Machado singled. Xander Bogaerts singled to score the first run. Miguel Andujar singled to score the second. Then Gavin Sheets drove a cutter into the right field seats for three runs and a 10-8 lead that Mason Miller closed without incident. It was Sheets’ second career go-ahead home run in the ninth inning or later – both have come against Colorado. “They do a good job of putting up good at-bats,” Vodnik acknowledged. “It’s just tough. Unlucky with those ground balls, and I didn’t execute when I had to.” The pitch that Sheets took deep was a backed-up cutter that didn’t cut.

​The game also brought two injury concerns. Ryan Feltner exited after just two innings with right triceps tightness, describing some numbness in his fingers. He was cautiously optimistic about his next start but offered no firm timetable. Willi Castro left in the middle of the game with patellar tendon tightness in his right knee. Neither situation had a clear resolution by the time the clubhouse cleared.

​Zach Agnos followed Feltner and provided three innings of work – a career high 67 pitches – giving the Rockies enough runway to build their lead through the middle innings. It mattered, ultimately, only to the extent that it got them to the ninth with a lead they could not hold.

​The Rockies finish the homestand 3-4 and head to New York for their next series. Moniak framed it plainly. “It’s been a year of a lot of highs, some lows,” he said. “Now it’s just going to be about finding that consistent high, figuring out ways to win baseball games.”

​The blueprint is there. Thursday afternoon was proof of that. The execution, right up until the final three outs, was not the problem.