Colorado Rockies Use Chatwood, Small Ball to Down Padres

Needing to find a way to manufacture some offense in a ballpark that has been less than kind to them in recent games, the Colorado Rockies got just enough runs to avoid a three-game sweep in San Diego.

The Rockies scored their only two runs of the day on fielder’s choices and Tyler Chatwood continued his dominance on the road as Colorado recorded a 2-0 victory over the Padres on Wednesday afternoon.

Chatwood threw a career-high eight innings for just the third time in his career and the first since July 13, 2013. During his 99-pitch effort, the right-hander scattered three hits and walked just one while striking out seven.

With the shutout, Chatwood has now thrown 24.2 consecutive scoreless innings and improved to 4-0 on the road with a 0.33 ERA. He’s allowed just one run in 27.2 innings away from Coors Field and his past three road starts have resulted in shutouts for Colorado.

“I was just trying to go out there and get outs and keep us in the game for as long as I could,” Chatwood said. “Luckily I was able to do that today and the offense came through and scored some runs. It was a big win for us.”

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Needing a boost after losing the first two games of the series, Chatwood provided just that, allowing just one runner to reach second. That came in the seventh inning when San Diego’s Brett Wallace stroked a two-out double to left and Melvin Upton Jr. followed with a walk. Chatwood ended the threat, however, by getting Alexei Ramirez to ground out to short.

“I knew I had Ramirez on deck so I was definitely careful with Upton,” Chatwood said. “I tried to attack Ramirez a little more and it worked out.”

Colorado catcher Tony Wolters said he liked the intensity that Chatwood brought to the game.

“All four of his pitches were lights out. He had control of them,” Wolters said. “He never got any patterns. He’s just a competitor out there. If you’re catching back there, you’ll see his face and you’ll be kinda scared of him. He has that mentality and that swagger on the mound that’s intimidating for hitters. He uses that for his advantage. I’m really proud of him.”

Colorado’s lone runs of the day came on a fifth-inning fielder’s choice by Christhian Adames and DJ LeMahieu’s pinch-hitting effort with a safety squeeze that plated Mark Reynolds with an insurance run in the ninth.

Jake McGee pitched a perfect ninth for his seventh save of the season.

“It was a tough series offensively but that’s the nature of the game,” Colorado Rockies manager Walt Weiss said. “Their starters did a good job. We have every one of them on the ropes and they battled through some trouble and got pretty deep into the games and then their bullpen did a nice job against us. I know going into today with the personnel we had in there that we wanted to create a lot of action so we hit-and-run a bunch and did a lot of things to try to manufacture (runs) so that was nice to see.”

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Weiss also said it was nice to see Chatwood continue his comeback from his second Tommy John surgery.

“When you think about the last couple of years for him, it makes it that much better,” Weiss said. “It’s been a tough road back after his second Tommy John but we always know what to expect as far as the mentality and the aggressiveness. It’s fun to watch.”

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