Padres' Walk-Off Grand Slam Will Be Turning Point for Rest of 2026 Season: Column

Imagine the San Diego Padres coming home from a winning road trip and losing to the lowly Colorado Rockies.

That certainly would have wrecked the young season, wouldn’t it?

At least that was the vibe at times on Thursday night at Petco Park, even with Mason Miller blowing through the ninth to come within one pitch of an immaculate inning.

The Rockies twice went ahead in extra innings before the Padres finally walked it off 7-3 on Xander Bogaerts’ grand slam with one out in the 12th inning.

Was it really that dramatic?

Of course it was.

XANDER BOGAERTS WALK-OFF GRAND SLAM PADRES ARE ABOVE .500!!!!!!!pic.twitter.com/x2OdpGAO6W
— Padres On SI (@PadresOnSI) April 10, 2026

As dreadful as they’ve been the last several seasons, the Rockies have messed with the Padres, both in San Diego and Denver. Maybe that was an offshoot of being managed by former Padres skipper Bud Black from 2017 until 40 games into last season when he was fired with the Rockies sitting at 7-33.

Black was in his ninth season of managing the Padres when he was fired by new Padres general manager A.J. Preller on June 15, 2015, setting off a carousel of managerial hires that has now settled on rookie skipper Craig Stammen.

Black is back in the Padres organization as a senior adviser to baseball operations and watched Thursday night’s game from Preller’s box.

Black and the sellout crowd of 41,390 saw an action-packed final few innings.

The Rockies twice took the lead in extras.

Beleaguered catcher Luis Campusano tied it at 3 on a double in the 11th when the Padres were down to their final out. In the top of the 12th, with Will Castro trying to score on Brenton Doyle’s grounder, Campusano caught second baseman Jake Croneworth’s throw and tagged out the runner.

Fernando Tatis Jr. decided on his own to lay down a sacrifice bunt to move automatic runner Jake Cronenworth to third in the 12th. The same Tatis who is homer-less and hitting just .204 13 games into the season.

The Rockies intentionally walked Jackson Merrill and Manny Machado before Bogaerts drove his second career walk-off grand slam into the seats in left field.

“It took a little longer than I think we wished. Great job,” Cronenworth told reporters afterward. “Lot of opportunities throughout the game, but to cash in there at the end the way we did, it’s awesome.”

It was worth it because the Padres popped above .500 for the first time this season.

Also, for what it’s worth, the game fell just eight days shy of the 18th anniversary of the 22-inning game these two teams played at Petco Park on April 17, 2008, a 2-1 Rockies victory that dragged on for 6 hours, 16 minutes and fried both teams’ bullpens.

As for Miller, he struck out the side in the ninth on 10 pitches to extend his scoreless streak to 27.2 innings dating to Aug. 6, six days after he was obtained in a trade with the Athletics during a flurry of deadline deals by Preller. It’s the longest active streak in baseball and is six shy of Cla Meredith’s franchise record set in 2006.

With victory in the series opener secured, the Padres can move on to the next big thing: debuting their City Connect 2.0 uniforms on Friday night as the four-game series continues.

The new City Connects are meant to celebrate the binational vibe of the San Diego-Tijuana region and are inspired by Dia de los Muertos, the Mexican celebration of the dead held the first two days of November. The jersey is obsidian blue, the pants are bone and the trim is marigold. A sleeve patch features La Catrina, the symbol of Dia de los Muertos.

The team unveiled the new unis on Thursday, which naturally invoked plenty of debate on social media and a few snarky comments about it being fitting that the Padres are being linked with the Day of the Dead.

There’s now plenty of new merchandise for fans to buy — the old City Connects lasted less than four full seasons — as well as a “hoppy new Súper Lager” that will debut at the ballpark Friday night. The beer label also features La Catrina.

Whether fans love or hate the City Connects, at least the Padres beat the Rockies.