SAN DIEGO -- - Jackson Merrill homered and Randy Vásquez struck out a career-high nine in six strong innings for the San Diego Padres , who beat the last-place Colorado Rockies 2-0 on Thursday night to open a four-game series.

The Padres pulled within 2 1/2 games of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West and opened a four-game lead over the New York Mets for the second of three National League wild cards.

The Padres were coming off a home series loss to Cincinnati and won for just the fourth time in 11 games. They have the easiest remaining schedule among playoff contenders but dropped consecutive series to Minnesota and Baltimore before taking two of three at Colorado last weekend.

Merrill hit an opposite-field shot to left off McCade Brown (0-4) with two outs i

See Full Page