SAN DIEGO — Home runs and pitching.
The Padres on Sunday were about efficiency.
Trent Grisham and Xander Bogaerts homered in the third inning, and Seth Lugo's return to being a starting pitcher was highly effective, as the Padres beat the Rockies 3-1 in a game that took just 2 hours, 3 minutes.
A fourth consecutive sellout pushed the Padres to a record attendance for a four-game series at Petco Park. Sunday's announced crowd of 43,972 brought the total for the opening series to 174,915.
After the first seven Padres batters made outs, Grisham launched a solo homer to the to the party deck beyond right-center field with one out in the third. José Azocar followed with a walk before Bogaerts turned on a 2-0 change-up and sent it a projected 413 feet to the second deck of the Western Metal Building for his second homer in two games.
That was enough for Lugo and two relievers, as the Padres won their second in a row to earn a split of the season-opening series.
In his first start since 2020, Lugo worked seven innings, allowing four hits, walking none and striking out seven. A home run by Ryan McMahon in the seventh gave the Rockies their only run.
Kris Bryant and Charlie Blackmon hit successive one-out singles to put runners at the corners in the first inning. The Rockies did not get another hit until Brian Serven grounded a ball through the left side leading off the sixth.
Lugo was more than methodical. He was machine-like, an assembly line of strikes. He threw 43 of them as he got through the first five innings in 62 pitches. He threw a first-pitch strike to the first 15 batters he faced and 22 of 25 overall.
After Serven's hit, the Rockies new lead-off batter, former Padre Jurickson Profar, grounded into a fielder's choice.
Lugo then struck out Bryant and Blackmon on six pitches.
The 33-year-old right-hander was at 76 pitches to start the seventh and retired C.J. Cron on a dribbler in front of the plate. Cron entered Sunday having gone 7-for-11 with three homers and two doubles in the first three games.
McMahon wrecked Lugo's shutout with a shot over the right field wall on a fastball Lugo left just a little too much on the edge of the inside portion of the plate. Lugo retired the final tow batters and finished at 93 pitches.
Luis Garcia worked a scoreless eighth, and Josh Hader earned his first save with a perfect ninth.
