DENVER _ Nick Margevicius has hit a lull.
It can't be dismissed.
The rookie is throwing pitches where he doesn't want to, falling behind in counts, giving up loud hits.
But he doesn't let games get away.
The 22-year-old left-hander, who a year ago was riding buses around the Midwest League in low-A ball, on Sunday showed remarkable poise once again in not crumbling when the game threatened to get away from him in a place where things can get away from pitchers in a flash.
Though the damage done against him propelled the Rockies to a 10-7 victory, Margevicius lasted five innings when it seemed he might be gone much earlier.
"Every single pitcher in baseball, including Cy Young winners, there are a couple (games) every year, they're just thrown out, they're not good," Padres manager Andy Green said earlier in the weekend. "But he's managed to keep us in games."
Despite Colorado taking a 4-0 lead in the second inning, the Padres were theoretically in Sunday's game all along _ and certainly until the Rockies' five-run seventh.
But their stunning power outage in the thin mountain air continued on a warm Mother's Day _ at least until it didn't matter.
The average game at Coors Field this season before Sunday featured 13 runs. At least one team had scored more than five runs in 15 of the 19 games, and both teams surpassed five runs in 10 games.
The Padres threatened to make Sunday serious just once and headed for the airport and their upcoming two-game series in Los Angeles against the first-place Dodgers having scored two, four and seven runs here this weekend.
The final four of those runs came with two outs in Sunday's ninth inning.
Enjoying their best collective week of the season offensively when they arrived here _ having hit .269/.321/.500 and averaged almost six runs, two doubles and two homers over their previous seven games _ the Padres' bats deflated in the mile-high air.
In Friday's 12-2 loss, their only extra-base hit was a groundball double by Franmil Reyes in the ninth inning. They hit two solo homers and a double in Saturday's 4-3 victory.
Sunday, Manny Machado's first-inning bloop double off his shattered pink bat and into a no-man's land in shallow left field was the only hit by a Padres position player until consecutive two-out singles by Wil Myers, Austin Allen and Alex Dickerson and a double by Greg Garcia got the Padres to within 5-3 in the seventh inning.
The Padres in that inning drove Antonio Senzatela (3-2) from the game. After giving up three runs on four hits in his 6 2/3 innings Sunday, the right-hander is 2-0 with a 2.70 ERA against the Padres and 1-2 with a 7.08 ERA in his other four starts this season.
The Padres' rally ended with runners on second and third when Reyes grounded out to second base against Carlos Estevez, his sixth straight out since going 3-for-5 on Friday. At that point, he was hitting .404 with a 1.119 OPS over a stretch of 48 plate appearances.
The Rockies added five runs in the seventh off relievers Gerardo Reyes and Brad Wieck, making the Padres' surge in the ninth simply a delay of the inevitable.
The four runs came on Myers' one-out single, a two-out pinch-hit single by Manuel Margot, an RBI double by Garcia and a three-run homer by Reyes.
If anything, that outburst against Seunghwan Oh showed what was possible.
The game ended when Scott Oberg came in, walked Manny Machado and got Eric Hosmer on a lineout to center field.
The big damage against Margevicius (2-4) was done by Rockies leadoff hitter Charlie Blackmon, who drove in three runs with a pair of homers.
Blackmon launched a slider in the middle of the zone to the second deck of seats beyond right field for a homer that scored the final two runs in the fourth, and he sent an ill-advised 3-0 fastball down the middle to the Rockies' bullpen.
Margevicius has been something of a marvel.
He effectively breezed through his first three big-league starts, going five innings twice and six the other time. He allowed a run in each game and total of nine hits and a walk.
He did it by staying ahead of batters, literally and figuratively. He kept them from demolishing his high-80s fastball by mixing in three other pitches. He attacked the strike zone as if he were Randy Johnson and the swings he got much of the time said his arsenal was sufficient.
He had not been awful in the four starts after that. But he lived on the edge, unafraid to use the walk strategically, work the corners and take what he was given.
Beginning with his April 16 start against the Rockies at Petco Park, in which he allowed five runs in the first three innings and was pulled after four, Margevicius allowed 11 runs on 22 hits and 12 walks in 20 1/3 innings over the four starts leading up to Sunday.
His line Sunday was notably similar to what he yielded to the Rockies last month in San Diego. The eight hits were one more than last time, the five runs and one walk the same and the five strikeouts two fewer.
