Xander Bogaerts ended it with one swing. His walk-off grand slam in the 12th inning gave the San Diego Padres a 7-3 win over the Colorado Rockies on Thursday, their first walk-off victory of the 2026 season.
The blast capped a game that had been tight for most of the night and sent the Padres above.500 for the first time in 2026 at 7-6. Bogaerts’ homer also turned a tense extra-inning game into a runaway finish in front of a San Diego crowd that had already seen enough to know how close this one had been.
Randy Vásquez set the tone with a strong start, allowing one earned run on seven hits while striking out eight over 5.2 innings. He now has a 1.02 ERA over 17.2 innings pitched this season, a start that has given San Diego a real chance to stay in games while the rest of the staff settles in.
The Rockies struck first in the third inning when Brenton Doyle hit a home run for Colorado’s opening run. The Padres answered in the bottom of the third when Fernando Tatis Jr. drove in a run after two singles and a sacrifice fly, keeping the game within reach before the bullpens took over.
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Bradgley Rodriguez got the final out of the sixth inning and came back to work a 1-2-3 seventh. Adrian Morejon followed with a scoreless eighth, and Mason Miller struck out the side on 10 pitches in the ninth. The game played like a pitchers’ duel between Vásquez and the Rockies bullpen until Bogaerts broke it open in the 12th.
That late swing mattered because it changed more than one game in the standings. The Padres had not found a walk-off win yet in 2026, and they had not spent any part of the season above.500 until Bogaerts sent them there. For a club still sorting out its early-season identity, this was the kind of finish that can carry weight long after the lights go out.
What comes next is simple and unforgiving: San Diego has a winning record to protect, and opponents now know that even a game that drags into the 12th can end in one pitch.
