Mickey Moniak has career day but slumping Rockies lose to Padres

Mickey Moniak had visions of the Rockies playing spoiler — not doormats — in the National League West. The outfielder almost made his dream come true on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park, hitting two home runs, going 4 for 4, driving in five runs, and stealing two bases. But it wasn’t quite enough. The Padres won 9-6 and took three of four games in the series. The Rockies finished their West Coast road trip 1-6, having been swept by the Dodgers in three games in Los Angeles. The Dodgers (83-65) lead the Padres (82-68) by two games in the division. “We have talked about the opportunity almost to feel what it’s like to be in the playoff hunt,” Moniak said last week. “We have a chance to play spoiler.” “And having such a young clubhouse, it would be a good experience for everybody to, A, run the gauntlet of those teams that are going to be in the playoffs and see how we stack up. And, B, finish the month off strong as we head into the offseason.” Rockies analysis: GM Bill Schmidt’s track record illustrates why front-office change appears imminent /*! This file is auto-generated */!function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i