Padres' series win streak ends at (where else?) Coors Field

DENVER -- The good news for the Padres: They won't need to worry about making a return trip to Colorado come October.

Lately, San Diego has been red-hot -- if not the hottest team in baseball, then one of the top two. But a weekend trip to Coors Field proved too tough a challenge. The Padres' quest to set a franchise record with nine consecutive series victories came to an end with a 3-2 loss to the Rockies on Sunday afternoon.

• Players' Weekend surprises touches hearts of Padres players

“We talk about winning series all the time, and we won eight in a row,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We’ve had a lot of streaks of winning series. That’s what it’s going to take to A) get in the playoffs and then, B) continue to advance and get a ring in the World Series -- to win series.”

At the very least, they won’t have to contend with Colorado the rest of the way. The Padres do not have a losing record against the Dodgers and Diamondbacks -- the two teams with whom San Diego is currently jockeying for postseason position. But the last-place Rockies gave the Padres fits this season, winning 8 of their 13 head-to-head matchups.

The Dodgers won on Sunday, putting an extra game of separation between themselves and the Padres. Their lead atop the NL West now sits at three games. Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks -- who also entered the weekend scorching hot -- were swept in Tampa Bay, meaning the Padres held onto their one-game edge for the top Wild Card spot.

“We’re playing good baseball right now,” said Manny Machado, whose eighth-inning home run cut the Padres’ deficit to one. “We’ve just got to continue doing it. Obviously, we didn’t get the series win, but you move onto the game tomorrow.”

Adding injury to insult, San Diego lost shortstop Ha-Seong Kim to a shoulder issue in the third inning after he dove awkwardly into first base on a pickoff attempt. There’s no timetable for Kim’s return, and he will undergo an MRI on Monday to determine the extent of the injury, which the Padres are calling a jammed right shoulder.

If there was a silver lining to the weekend, it was this: The Padres managed to escape the altitude of Colorado with their bullpen relatively intact. That was always especially crucial at the start of a stretch with 18 games in 18 days. San Diego’s three starters averaged more than five innings per start over the weekend, leaving the bullpen to cover a wholly manageable 9 1/3 innings across three games.

“Thing is,” Shildt said, ruefully, “I’d rather pitch the ninth a couple more times.”

Joe Musgrove, the Padres’ starter on Sunday, turned in the shortest outing of the group -- which was by design. Musgrove was making his second start after missing more than two months with an elbow injury and was limited to 73 pitches.

But in those 73 pitches, Musgrove looked sharp -- in a place where it’s tough for pitchers to look especially sharp. He allowed three hits and a run across 4 1/3 innings, while striking out six.

“I don’t want to put the team in a deficit where I’m going three innings and forcing the bullpen to cover six,” Musgrove said. “But I feel pretty good with my stuff.”

The last of those six K's was the 1,000th of Musgrove’s career -- a mark he said was especially gratifying given that he’s spent most of the year on the IL, knowing he was close. He added, colorfully: “It makes you realize how [freaking] crazy it is that Nolan Ryan’s got 5,000 of them.”

Musgrove’s workload likely will be monitored in his next time out, though it’ll be closer to a full outing. Then, the reins will be off. Just in time for the stretch run.

“He’s a competitor, man,” Machado said. “We know that he’s not built up to where he needs to be. But he’s going to go out there and compete. … He’s been pitching really well. He looks like his old self.”

Musgrove exited in the fifth with the game tied, 1-1, before the Rockies’ two-run rally against Bryan Hoeing put them on top for good. Machado’s solo blast was his 157th as a Padre, breaking a tie with Phil Nevin for third place on the franchise’s all-time list and moving him six shy of Nate Colbert’s record.

But it wasn’t enough; the streak came to an end an inning later.

“Going to have to start another one,” said Shildt.