Rockies at Padres
The San Diego Padres are enjoying their best stretch of the season and seek their eighth victory in 11 games when they host the Colorado Rockies on Friday. San Diego has won a season-high four consecutive contests as it enters a three-game set against the Rockies, who posted a 6-3 win over Seattle on Thursday.
The Padres established a season highlight with a three-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs, outscoring the reigning world champions 13-5. "We played three all-around solid games against the Cubs," San Diego manager Andy Green told reporters. "Good pitching, timely hitting and some really nice defensive plays." Colorado matched its worst skid of the season at three games before salvaging the finale of a stretch of four contests against Seattle. Slugger Mark Reynolds continued his renaissance with his 14th homer - matching last season's total - and has 46 RBIs, which puts him second in the National League behind teammate Charlie Blackmon (47).
TV: 10:10 p.m. ET, ROOT (Colorado), FSN San Diego
PITCHING MATCHUP: Rockies RH German Marquez (4-2, 3.76 ERA) vs. Padres LH Clayton Richard (3-6, 4.33)
Marquez is on a roll, posting a 1.46 ERA while winning each of his last four starts. The 22-year-old has yielded just two runs in three road outings while going 2-0 with a 1.06 ERA. Marquez made his major-league debut against the Padres on Sept. 8, when he allowed three runs, two hits and three walks in 2 1/3 innings of relief.
Richard has lost four of his last five decisions and allowed five or more runs in three of his last seven outings. The 33-year-old gave up one run and five hits while beating Arizona in a complete-game effort on May 21 before giving up three runs and 10 hits in six innings of a loss to Washington in his last turn. Richard is 3-4 with a 4.79 ERA in 15 career appearances (14 starts) versus Colorado and has had success against Carlos Gonzalez (7-for-32, eight strikeouts).
WALK-OFFS
1. The Rockies won two of three at San Diego from May 2-4 in manager Bud Black's first visit to Petco Park since being fired by the Padres in June 2015.
2. San Diego 2B Yangervis Solarte is 12-for-32 with seven walks in nine games since moving into the No. 2 spot in the lineup.
3. Colorado 3B Nolan Arenado homered Thursday to end his nine-game power outage.