Padres beat Rockies 1-0 behind seven strong innings from Randy Vásquez

DENVER - The Padres have four games remaining on mountain ranges this week.

Plenty of time to start playing like it.

At least while the hitters got acclimated to the altitude, Randy Vásquez pitched Tuesday like he was born in the thin air that generally makes pitching at elevation such an unpleasant experience.

The 27-year-old right-hander continued his excellent start to the season with seven scoreless innings against the Rockies, and the Padres scored the game’s only run on a bases-loaded walk.

"I’ve never seen that before,” Jake Cronenworth said. "A 1-0 game at Coors Field. In the 80-plus games I’ve played here and I don’t think I’ve ever seen that and I’ll probably never see it again."

It was just the 12th 1-0 game at Coors Field and the first time in 20 years a visiting team had won by that score. It was the first game at the giant ballpark a mile high in which the only run scored on an RBI that was not on a ball put in play, and it was the first time in Rockies history they lost a game anywhere in which the only run scored on a bases-loaded walk.

Jason Adam and Adrian Morejón closed out the victory over the Rockies by working an inning apiece at the end. Padres manager Craig Stammen explained that closer Mason Miller was given the day off after pitching Saturday and Sunday in Anaheim.

“Mason will be fine going forward, but we’ve got to take it easy on him,” Stammen said. “We’ve used him a lot over here over the last week or so. And he’s not a robot.”

The Padres finished Tuesday’s game with six hits, two of them coming in the ninth inning.

The two that came in the sixth - on a one-out double by Cronenworth and two-out single by Fernando Tatis Jr. that rolled about 75 feet - and the Padres turned those into a run.

With Cronenworth on third base and Tatis on second, a curveball grazed Jackson Merrill's pant leg before Manny Machado drew a bases-loaded walk.

Vásquez finished the third seven-inning outing of his career with 12 consecutive outs. He threw just 84 pitches, allowed three hits without a walk and struck out five.

“Fantastic," Stammen said. "It's hard to pitch like that in Coors Field. Did a tremendous job throwing strikes, kept his pitch count down, got a lot of swing and miss. Just an outstanding outing from Randy."

Jimmy Herget and Chase Dollander, the Rockies pitchers who got through the first seven innings, combined for 12 strikeouts. In all, the Padres struck out a season-high 15 times.

Tuesday was the third time in 13 days Herget served as the opener against the Padres, with Dollander following him.

The duo had been effective the first two games. They were electric the third time.

Herget struck out all three batters he faced. Then Dollander, who began the second inning, did the same thing three innings later in the midst of a six-strikeout streak from the last out of the third inning to the second out of the fifth.

That was also in the middle of a stretch of 12 straight batters retired for Dollander.

Cronenworth's double with one out in the sixth inning stopped that streak.

Bogaerts struck out to end the inning, and Dollander would get one more strikeout in the seventh to tie his career high with nine in his six innings.

It was a rough night for Rockies pitchers to have their best night at home this season, because Vásquez was simply better. The right-hander lowered his ERA to 1.88 over 27⅔ innings in his five starts.

The Rockies came out swinging, as they have against most pitchers.

Vásquez took just 19 pitches to get through the first two innings before the Rockies began taking a few more pitches. Still, he was at 31 pitches after three innings and 45 after four.

He had not retired the Rockies in order to that point but had gotten four first-pitch outs.

He did work a 1-2-3 fifth inning, though the Rockies drove his pitch count up to 65 for the night. He concluded his work with a 12-pitch sixth and seven-pitch seventh inning.

The Padres, who have won all five games against the Rockies this season, have two more games here before playing the Diamondbacks twice in Mexico City. The elevation at Estadio Alfredo Harp Helú is 7,350 above sea level, more than 2,000 feet higher than mile-high Coors Field.

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This story was originally published April 21, 2026 at 9:05 PM.