NL West MLB Baseball
Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado, who played big roles in the landmark Rockies series one year ago. They appear here during the shortened 2020 spring training. Photo credit: @padres, via Twitter.

In the absence of baseball, take a deep breath, close your eyes and think back to one year ago, when your San Diego Padres faced the Colorado Rockies.

And all baseball hell broke loose.

Roughly, that means players on both sides struck down offensive records left and right, as the Denver Post recounts.

Officially, neither side really had the right of it. The Pads and the Rockies split the June 13-16 series. But the two games the Padres won came courtesy of stirring, late-inning comebacks.

Some stats:

  • The teams combined for 92 runs, the most in a four-game set in more than a century.
  • The Padres forced the second game of the series into extra innings by scoring five in the top of the ninth, thanks to a rally kicked off by Fernando Tatis Jr. They won the game 16-12.
  • Tatis added three hits in the closing game of the series, which was out of control by the third, with the Rockies leading 9-8.
  • Despite the potent offense on both sides, the Padres won that final game on a walk, with the bases loaded to wait for it … pitcher Matt Strahm.
  • Rockie Charlie Blackmon logged 15 hits, the most, the Post said, in a four-game series in the modern era.

Alas, the games, though thrilling, had little impact. The Rockies finished fourth in the National League West, with the Padres right behind them.

– Staff reports