SAN DIEGO _ It was not entirely Coors Field-esque, but it was as if a little bit of the mile high madness made it down to sea level in the Colorado Rockies' luggage.
San Diego Padres starting pitcher Eric Lauer allowed 10 hits before leaving with no outs in the fifth inning. Fernando Tatis Jr. homered on the second pitch he saw. The Padres scored three times in the first two innings and added five unearned runs in the third.
With a handful of exceptional defensive plays helping along the way, the Padres beat the Rockies 9-3 in the first of four games they'll play here against the club keeping them out of the National League West cellar.
If this game were played a mile high, the teams very well might have scored on pace with the major league-record 92 runs they totaled in a four-game series at Coors Field in mid-June.
After Tatis' homer and an RBI single by Eric Hosmer in the first and Luis Urias' lead-off double and Tatis' RBI single in the second, Rockies starter Jon Gray did not allow another hit until the sixth inning.
Lauer, who allowed 13 runs in 5 2/3 innings in two starts in Denver this season, surrendered a run on two singles around a wild pitch in the first inning. The Rockies added a run in the third on back-to-back doubles.
Charlie Blackmon's homer on the first pitch of the fifth tied it 3-3, and Lauer was done when Trevor Story followed with a single. The only other time in 44 career starts that Lauer allowed 10 hits was June 15 at Coors Field.
Between Francisco Mejia's one-out single and Wil Myers' two-run double with two outs, the Padres scored two runs on throwing errors and another on Gray's wild pitch in the sixth inning.
The Rockies, conversely, had to feel robbed by the defense the seemed primed to add on with three successive singles to start the fourth inning. But on the third of those, Rockies third base coach Stu Cole inexplicably sent Ryan McMahon home from second base despite the fact right fielder Hunter Renfroe had fielded the ball and was about to throw home as McMahon was rounding third. Renfroe's throw beat McMahon by so much that he didn't slide. Gray followed with a grounder to second that Urias backhanded and flipped the ball from his glove to Tatis, who threw to first to end the inning.
Renfroe had ended the second inning with a diving catch of a sinking line drive.
Tatis, the rookie shortstop who has led off two consecutive games with a home run, ended the first inning by diving to his left to snag a ground ball Ian Desmond hit 104.1 mph and throwing a two-hopper to Hosmer at first.
Tatis ended the seventh by fielding a chopper up the middle in the grass, doing a 360-degree turn and throwing to first.
Manuel Margot, who entered the game in center field in the seventh inning, led off the eighth with a home run.
