DENVER _ Tyson Ross fell back to the pack, and Padres hitters continued to walk back to the dugout with bat in hand in a 5-2 loss Wednesday to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field.
Ross, coming off his flirtation with a no-hitter last Friday and having lasted at least six innings in each of his previous four starts this season, was gone after four innings, having allowed four runs.
Meanwhile, the Padres struck out 16 times and managed just four hits.
They struck out 12 times in a four-hit effort on Tuesday and on Wednesday upped their major league-leading strikeout total for the season to 273.
Franchy Cordero's run in Wednesday's seventh inning was the first time the Padres scored since they did so seven times in the seventh inning of Monday's 13-5 victory. In the 20 innings since that offensive explosion, they have eight hits.
The Padres' other run Wednesday came in the ninth, when Wil Myers doubled, went to third on a passed ball and scored on Chase Headley's groundout.
Rockies starter Jon Gray, who had a 10.54 ERA in his previous three starts, struck out 11 in six scoreless innings.
Padres starting pitchers entered Wednesday's series finale averaging just 4.97 innings per start, sixth-lowest in the majors. Padres starters had gone six innings just eight times this season, and Ross had four of those.
Coming off a 127-pitch outing Friday in Arizona, in which he did not allow a hit until he was two outs into the eighth inning, Ross looked sharp in the first inning Wednesday but quickly faltered.
The Rockies scored a run on three hits in the second. Ross' three walks in the third inning, equal to his season-high for a game, led to three more runs.
