DENVER _ Jacob Nix was better Wednesday. Better than last time, for sure. Better as he settled into his third big-league start.
He was not good enough.
Neither was his injury-depleted lineup.
The 22-year-old right-hander paid for early wildness, Wil Myers was scratched from the lineup after taking a groundball off his face during batting practice and the Padres could not muster enough offense in a 6-2 loss to the Rockies at Coors Field.
Freddy Galvis hit his 11th home run in the seventh inning, one of only five hits backing Nix's bounceback attempt.
The Padres' rookie starter struck out only two, allowed three runs over his first two innings and exited after five innings after yielding five hits and a walk.
Nix threw six shutout innings at the Phillies in his big-league debut on Aug. 10. He recorded only two outs before he was lifted with five runs allowed in the encore.
Admittedly, it was reasonable to expect something in between those extremes.
Which is where Nix ended up after retiring seven in a row and 10 of the last 11 he faced to finish Wednesday's effort.
The start of the game was the problem.
He'd thrown 46 pitches by the time he sat down after the second inning with the Padres trailing 3-1.
A Charlie Blackmon single, stolen base and Carlos Gonzalez blooper plated a run in the first. The next inning, Ian Desmond's one-out walk came around to score on Tony Wolters' triple to right and Wolters scored on a wild pitch before Blackmon's second single of the game.
The only other hit that Nix yielded was Trevor Story's two-out double in the third. He fetched five of his 10 groundouts after the second inning and exited with 58 of his 98 pitches thrown for strikes.
An injury-depleted lineup _ Hunter Renfroe (forearm) and Christian Villanueva (finger) were nursing nagging injuries before Myers' injury _ did not have enough firepower to mount a comeback after Phil Maton allowed two runs in the sixth and Miguel Diaz allowed another in the eighth.
Not that Galvis didn't try.
His 11th homer _ seventh since the All-Star break _ landed in the second deck in right field, 417 feet from the plate in the seventh inning.
The only other run the Padres recorded off Rockies starter Jon Gray (61/3 innings) scored in the first when de facto cleanup hitter Cory Spangenberg doubled off the base of the wall in center field.
