SAN DIEGO _ Joey Lucchesi is rarely hit hard. It's the free passes that tend to smear his starts, although not even the Rockies could do enough with the career-high five walks that the 26-year-old left-hander danced around Saturday night.
Wil Myers continued a hot September with his 17th homer and Manny Machado added his 29th, all the support a wild but extremely effective Lucchesi needed to down the Rockies, 3-0, and snap the Padres' four-game skid.
"Joey has a way to suppress hard contact," Padres manager Andy Green said. "He can still get punchouts. For him, as long as he eliminates the free passes, he usually ends up in a pretty good spot by the end of the day."
That was the case even with his walk total creeping upward as Saturday's start wore on.
In fact, all arrived after Lucchesi retired the first 10 Rockies in order, the second time in three games in which he has cruised through the first three innings without giving up a hit. He struck out eight over six innings _ including the first four hitters of the game, all looking _ and scattered two soft-contact hits, both singles, in his first scoreless start since June 17 against the Brewers.
Charlie Blackmon's one-out walk in the fourth inning provided the Rockies' first base-runner and Ian Desmond supplied the first hit, a one-out, broken-bat single to center that frame.
Lucchesi even walked another batter in the fourth before a punchout got him out of the inning.
He also stranded the walk and single he allowed in the fifth and fetched a double-play ball after back-to-back walks to start the sixth prompted a visit from pitching coach Darren Balsley.
Eric Hosmer made one last play to get Lucchesi out of the game with his third quality start in his last four trips to the mound, tracking a pop-fly off the bat of Garrett Hampson to netting along the first-base stands.
As the ball plummeted, Hosmer shoved in the netting in time to scoop the ball cleanly for the third out of the inning.
Lucchesi threw 52 of his 90 pitches for strikes and has allowed two runs or fewer in his last four starts, a sign that the Padres' message is beginning to hit home.
Quietly, the second-year starter entered the weekend ranked among the NL's top-five qualifying left-handers in opponent average (.228), on-base-plus-slugging (.683) and WHIP (1.19), traits that play well for a team if Lucchesi can pitch beyond five innings as he did Saturday, a wall of sorts throughout the first five months of the season.
"He knows it's time," Green said before the game, "to really start taking steps forward."
That, of course, is Myers' aim, too.
In and out of the lineup for much of another inconsistent season, the 28-year-old outfielder had posted a 1.231 OPS to start September and continued to trend in the right direction with a solo homer off Rockies right-hander Jeff Hoffman (5 2/3 IP, 3 ER) to start the fifth inning. He also stole his 14th base and singled twice, his first three-hit game since Aug. 2 and just his third all season.
The blast was also Myers' second homer in his last six games and just the Padres' second hit of the game.
The fourth was Machado's two-run homer, just his third since the start of August. He had a .599 OPS over his previous 32 games.
Both late homers _ combined with three shutout innings from relievers Craig Stammen, Andres Munoz and Kirby Yates _ helped Lucchesi before the Padres' first 10-game winner since Jhoulys Chacin won 13 times in 2017.
Yates stranded a one-out single in the ninth to secure his 40th save, the most by a Padres close since Heath Bell saved 43 in 2011.
