Xander Bogaerts gave the Padres a second-inning show at Coors Field on Thursday, then spent the rest of the afternoon one base hit away from a place beside the franchise’s cycle club.
San Diego rolled past Colorado, 9-2, and pushed its National League Wild Card cushion to four games over Arizona. Bogaerts supplied much of the early thunder, opening the second inning by driving the first pitch he saw for a home run. By the time the Padres had sent nine men to the plate in a seven-run inning, he was back in the box and lined an RBI triple to finish the rally.
That sequence put Bogaerts alone in Padres history: no San Diego hitter had previously produced both a homer and a triple in the same inning.
He added a double in the fourth, leaving only a single to complete the cycle. Bogaerts received two more chances with that possibility in front of him, but struck out each time. Matt Kemp, Wil Myers and Jake Cronenworth remain the only Padres to hit for the cycle. Kemp and Myers each did it in Denver, a ballpark that has long offered hitters room to chase an extra base.
The order of Bogaerts’ hits also gave the afternoon another wrinkle. He had collected the home run, triple and double in that order and was pursuing a reverse cycle, which would have required a single as the final piece. Pete Crow-Armstrong completed one for the Cubs earlier this season. Since expansion began in 1961, only Rajai Davis in 2016, Carlos Gomez in 2008, Luke Scott in 2006 and Jim Fregosi in 1968 had previously done it.
The missed singles will be the footnote, not the main takeaway for San Diego. Bogaerts has had a difficult season by his standards, but his afternoon in Denver offered a timely reminder of what his bat can bring when the lineup starts moving. One historic inning helped set the tone, and the Padres left Coors Field with a convincing win and a little more breathing room in the Wild Card chase.
