DENVER _ The Padres trailed by three runs as the ninth inning began Sunday under a gray sky at the ballpark that breaks spirits.
The Padres and Rockies had already scored 88 runs in four days, same as the Dodgers and Phillies did in a May series 90 years ago.
Fernando Tatis Jr. came to the plate a home run shy of the cycle and lined out to right field.
Then Eric Hosmer walked and Manny Machado did, too.
Hunter Renfroe, who already had two homers on Sunday and five in the series, hit a long fly ball that was caught in center field.
It was almost over. But of course it wasn't.
The Padres would mount their second ninth-inning comeback in three days and beat the Rockies 14-13 because this happened:
Wil Myers ripped a single to left field that scored Hosmer. Greg Garcia hit his second triple of the game, which tied it at 13.
Rockies closer Wade Davis was done. In came Jon Gray, who started Thursday in the first game of a series that would go on to see records break and tempers flare and water bubble from the ground and fall from the sky.
The Rockies issued intentional walks to Josh Naylor and pinch-hitter Austin Allen to bring up pinch-hitter Matt Strahm, who had been the Padres starting pitcher Thursday and gotten two singles off Gray.
Strahm walked.
Yes, Thursday's starting pitcher walked Thursday's starting pitcher to bring in the winning run in Sunday's game.
And thus finished four games that featured a mile-high miracle, some mud, another mile-high miracle and left the Padres' pitching staff a mess.
The teams combined for 92 runs, breaking the modern era record for runs in a series of four or fewer games held by the Phillies and Dodgers in 1929. The 131 hits between the two National League West foes were second most ever.
Among those hits were 15 by Colorado's Charlie Blackmon, most by any player in the modern era in a series of four or fewer games.
Tatis had multiple hits in all four games and was 10-for-15 with seven runs in the series.
The 48 runs the Rockies scored in the series were the most the Padres ever allowed in a four-game set, breaking a 23-year-old high of 40 runs set by the Dodgers in July of 1996.
Yes, it was Coors Field.
But even before the Padres came to the thin air of Denver and tried to get outs in the massive ballpark where balls fly to the seats and also drop into vast open spaces in the outfield grass, their pitching staff was running out of oxygen.
Starters and relievers have leaked runs at a rate rare for an organization that through all its ugly seasons has generally been able count on its pitching as at least a relative strength.
As the Padres head home to face the Brewers for three games, they packed as some heavy baggage a 4.62 team ERA, the highest it has been at any point this late in a season since 2016. Before that experimental and developmental year, the Padres hadn't had a staff ERA this high this far into a season since 2009.
The youngest rotation in the majors was expected to go through growing pains. Even as they collectively began the season with 3.38 ERA through the season's first 27 games, the Padres cautioned bumps were ahead.
Starters have posted a 4.86 ERA since.
As a whole, a staff that posted a 3.48 ERA and 1.16 WHIP through the season's first 32 games has devolved to (204 ER in 343) and (454 H/W in 343) in the 40 games since.
Coming to Colorado didn't help anything.
Padres starters in the series allowed 24 runs in 12 1/3 innings.
Strahm lasted just 3 1/3 innings in giving up six runs Thursday. Cal Quantrill was the iron man, yielding four runs in five inning Friday. Eric Lauer allowed five runs in 2 2/3 innings Saturday.
A 9-6 loss Thursday was a relatively ho-hum night in a ballpark that yields an average of 13 runs a game this season.
No Padres team and no Rockies opponent had ever come back from six down in the ninth inning until it happened Friday in a game the Padres won 16-12 in 12 innings (and five hours, four minutes).
Rain delayed the start of Saturday's game by a half-hour, and a 14-8 loss was twice interrupted by Padres being ejected _ Machado in the fifth and Andy Green and Strahm in the sixth.
That was a prelude to Sunday.
The first two innings took an hour and 20 minutes, including the 15 minutes spent drying the warning track just beyond first base after a subterranean pipe burst and quickly flooded the area. The teams had scored 14 runs between them.
Three batters and three hits into the third inning, that was 16 runs. The Padres added another to get to 9-8.
Padres starter Nick Margevicius was long gone by then, having been pulled with one out and two on in the second. Luis Perdomo allowed one of those runners to score, and Margevicius was charged with nine runs. Over his past nine starts, which includes two at Coors Field, the rookie has an 8.44 ERA.
With another diving stop by Tatis Jr. ending the inning, Perdomo retired the Rockies in order for the game's first scoreless half-inning in the bottom of the third.
No one scored again until Trevor Story's solo homer in the fifth.
That was just before the announcement that lightning had struck in the area and fans were asked to clear the upper deck and find shelter in concourses.
After Manuel Margot grounded into a double play that ended the top of the sixth, a weather delay commenced. It rained hard for just a few of the 48 minutes the game was halted.
The game resumed at 4:20 local time, and before it was 4:22 the Rockies had added a run off Phil Maton. It was 13-8 at the end of the sixth.
Tatis' lead-off triple, an RBI groundout by Manny Machado and Renfroe's second homer made it 13-10 in the seventh.
Things were only getting started.
