DENVER — Things went from seemingly OK to really bad quickly.

That tends to happen at Coors Field more than other ballparks, especially when a pitcher stops throwing strikes and the defense falters.

The Padres had a three-run lead and a starting pitcher on the mound who appeared in control. They had left some runners on but were continually pressuring and had pushed the Rockies starter to his limit after four innings.

The rain had stopped.

Suddenly, a chilly night turned ugly.

The Padres would fall behind in the bottom of the fourth inning, not score again and go on to lose 7-4 to one of the worst teams in the major leagues.

The Rockies won their sixth game in 24 tries this season, flipping a 4-1 deficit into a 6-4 lead by scoring five runs in the fourth, four on a grand slam and one on a bases-loaded walk.

The big inning also featured an early error on what appeared might be a double-play grounder, making two of the runs unearned. The Padres 19 unearned runs are third-most in the major leagues, as 12 of their 17 errors have led to at least one run scoring.

That is the kind of sloppiness that can be particularly painful at Coors Field, where pitchers have a difficult enough time dealing with less movement on their pitches and the ball flying in the mile-high air, as well as the massive outfield that serves as a pasture where hits grow.

“It’s really just about playing good baseball, clean baseball,” Mike Shildt said before Monday’s series opener. “You don’t want to give anything away here. It can hurt you at any time in the game. … This is a little bit more of a unique place in the big leagues, but it really gets back to just nothing free and making sure we take advantage of everything we get.”

King’s night began to unravel when Elehuris Montero singled through the left side and Jake Cronenworth mishandled a grounder by Nolan Jones, turning a potential double-play that emptied the bases into the Rockies having two runners on with no outs. A single by Brenton Doyle followed, and Brendan Rodgers grand slam followed that.

The next two batters reached, on a single and double, putting men at second and third and prompting Shildt to call for an intentional walk that again loaded the bases.

King struck out Elias Diaz before walking Montero to bring in another run.

King’s night was finished.

The right-hander had gotten through the first inning on nine pitches. He had walked a batter and given up a run in the second. But he was through three innings fairly swiftly, having yielded three hits and the one walk with four strikeouts on 57 pitches.

That he was the starting pitcher who departed without finishing four pinning was quite the flip.

The Rockies’ Ryan Feltner allowed 10 hits and walked two in his four innings.

The Padres scored twice in the first on a walk by Xander Bogaerts, singles by Fernando Tatis Jr. and Cronenworth and Jurickson Profar’s sacrifice fly.

A pair of two-out singles in the second yielded nothing, but they added two more runs in the third on a single by Ha-Seong Kim, an RBI double by Luis Campusano and RBI single by Jackson Merrill.

A two–out single by Tatis and walk by Cronenworth had Feltner on fumes in the fourth, but he ended the inning by striking out Profar.

Then came the decisive inning for the Rockies. They would add a run in the fifth against Stephen Kolek.

The Padres got a walk and two singles against three Rockies relievers over the final five innings.

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