Padres vs Rockies Series Preview Ahead of Trade Deadline: Pitching Matchups, Bold Prediction, More

The San Diego Padres are an even 53-53 heading into their six most important games of the season.

With Major League Baseball's trade deadline just a week away, the Padres are currently two games back of the final wild-card spot in the National League.

If the Padres want to give president of baseball operations AJ Preller a reason to buy, they need to win their final two series before the break.

The first of those series is a quick two-game set with the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park. The Rockies (42-65) own the worst record in all of baseball and have just four wins in their last 14 contests.

The Padres are coming off a series sweep of the Miami Marlins. Another sweep in this two-game series would almost certainly push Preller to start buying.

The Padres already swept the Rockies once this season in their four-game series at Petco Park in early April. Overall, San Diego is 6-1 against Colorado this year.

Padres vs Rockies Pitching Probables

Tuesday, July 28: RHP Michael King vs. RHP Michael Lorenzen

There's no one better for the Padres to kick off this six-game homestand than Michael King, the ace of the staff.

King has a 3.24 ERA across 119.1 innings this season with 103 strikeouts to 49 walks. While he hasn't had his best stuff seemingly all year, he's battled and found a way to grind through his outings.

King and Walker Buehler are the only two true starting pitchers in the rotation at this point in the year (but more on that in a bit). Thus, he'll look to put together a long outing and keep the bullpen fresh for the upcoming stretch of 16 games in 16 days.

Opposite King will be right-hander Michael Lorenzen, who's 3-9 with a 6.53 ERA across 100.2 innings this season.

He pitched one scoreless inning in relief against the Padres in early April — his lone relief outing this season.

Wednesday, July 29: TBA vs. RHP Gabriel Hughes

The Rockies are going with right-hander Gabriel Hughes, who will be making the fourth start (and fifth appearance) of his big league career.

Hughes is 0-2 with a 2.79 ERA across 19.1 innings this season with 19 strikeouts to six walks. He was a first-round pick by the Rockies in 2022.

As for the Padres, they're currently going with the "pitching chaos" approach that the Detroit Tigers used in 2024. Essentially, the Padres have two starting pitchers — King and Buehler — and 11 relievers, many of which are able to take down multiple innings.

The Padres are finding lanes for the likes of Germán Márquez, Randy Vásquez, JP Sears, Kyle Hart and Matt Waldron to get as many outs as the team feels comfortable with. Then, they hand it off to another multi-inning guy before going to their high-leverage relievers to close things out.

“That’s going to be the norm here probably, going forward,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said, "until we get some reinforcements or find guys that can handle that traditional starting role.”

The Padres could potentially find those guys in the next week at the deadline. For now, they'll maintain this approach, which means Wednesday's "starter" is currently "to be announced."

Bold Prediction for Padres vs Rockies

The bold prediction for this series is that the Padres sweep the two-game set, and Preller will immediately get on the phone in search of a starting pitcher (and potentially a bat).

The Padres offense will stay hot, getting double-digit hits in both games.

How to Watch Padres vs Rockies July 28-29

First pitch for Tuesday's series opener is 6:40 p.m. PT/9:40 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Padres.TV and in the MLB app.

First pitch for Wednesday's series finale is 1:10 p.m. PT/4:10 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Padres.TV and in the MLB app.

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