Padres, Matt Waldron turn in strong starts to beat Rockies

DENVER — A fantastic start and surviving a midgame letdown was enough.

For the Padres and for Matt Waldron.

The Padres scored four runs in the first inning and one more after four innings of silence en route to a sharply played and somewhat sleepy 5-2 victory over the Rockies on Wednesday night at Coors Field.

Waldron allowed one run on four hits over six innings for his first victory of the season.

Wednesday was, in fact, the first time the Padres won in his five starts.

They helped him by scoring almost as many runs in the first inning as they had while he was in his previous four starts combined. He helped them by keeping the Rockies scoreless until the sixth inning.

With that, the Padres moved back above .500 (14-13) and moved on to Thursday with a chance to win the series.

The Padres jumped on Rockies left-hander Ty Blach right away, sending eight batters to the plate in the first inning.

Xander Bogaerts led off with a single, Fernando Tatis Jr. walked and, with one out, so did Jurickson Profar. Ha-Seong Kim drove in two runs with a flared single to shallow right field that moved Profar to third base. Jackson Merrill’s fly ball to center scored Profar and allowed Kim to advance to second. Eguy Rosario’s single scored Kim.

The four runs the Padres scored before Waldron took the mound were just one fewer than they had scored while he was in any of his first four starts. It was double what they had scored in any full game he had started this season.

The right-hander went about pitching the first three innings as if he was writing an instruction manual — continually getting ahead and then throwing his knuckleball at will.

His midgame lull came in the bottom of the fourth.

After Waldron retired Charlie Blackmon on a pop-up near the mound to start the inning, the Rockies got their first base runners of the game, as Waldron fell behind and lost seven-pitch battles with Ezequiel Tovar and Ryan McMahon, walking both.

Elias Díaz followed with the Rockies’ first hit, which loaded the bases. On the grounder to the hole at shortstop, Kim made a diving stop to keep the ball in the infield. He almost threw out Díaz and, significantly, kept Tovar from rounding third and going home.

That turned out to be a run-saving play, as the inning was over three pitches later on a pop fly out by Elehuris Montero and groundout by Brendan Doyle.

Waldron followed a lead-off single in the fifth with three quick outs, and the Padres increased their lead in the sixth by emerging from a mire of their own.

They had followed their big first inning with a promising start to the second. But singles by Kyle Higashioka and Bogaerts were followed by 10 straight outs, as Blach made it through five innings.

Again, the Padres jumped on a new pitcher.

Singles by Profar and Kim greeted Victor Vodnik. Kim’s hit was a magnificently placed bunt to the left side that third baseman McMahon threw well wide of first base and into foul territory, allowing Profar and Kim to take an extra base. Profar scored on a groundout by Merrill.

McMahon’s home run over the wall in right-center got the Rockies back to within four, and Waldron had runners at first and second when he got Brendan Rodgers on a fielder’s choice grounder to shortstop to end the sixth.

After Yuki Matsui worked a scoreless seventh, Wandy Peralta surrendered a two-run homer by Díaz that caromed off Merrill’s glove at the top of the wall in center field in the eighth.

Robert Suarez took seven pitches to complete a scoreless ninth and move into a tie for the MLB lead with his ninth save.