With two of their top bats back in the lineup, Colorado responded to San Diego's late rally a day earlier with a comeback victory of its own to end its slide.
Corey Dickerson and Nolan Arenado will try to power the Rockies to a series split Thursday against the visiting Padres.
The Padres racked up 17 hits while winning 14-3 in the first of this four-game set, then scored four runs in the eighth inning of Tuesday's 7-6 victory. The Rockies (8-7) showed a flair for the dramatic Wednesday, scoring the tying run in the eighth on the second of Dickerson's two solo shots before winning 5-4 on Daniel Descalso's pinch-hit single in the ninth, snapping a five-game losing streak.
Dickerson, who only pinch hit Tuesday after leaving Monday with plantar fasciitis, also went deep on the first pitch he saw and leads the team with 12 RBIs. Arenado was 2 for 4 with his seventh double after missing two games with a sore wrist and has driven in 11 runs. Both are among the NL's top 10 in slugging percentage at .623 and .653.
"I want to be out there no matter what," said Dickerson, who has hit .380 with five home runs and nine RBIs in his last 14 meetings. "If I can play through it, I'm going to play through it."
Thursday's matchup features two pitchers looking to throw more strikes.
Jordan Lyles (1-1, 3.50 ERA) is 1-3 with a 6.30 ERA in six career starts against San Diego, walking 18 in 30 innings. He has walked nine already through 18 innings in three outings this year and gave up four runs with five bases on balls over six innings in Saturday's 6-3 defeat to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
"It's the walks, and a lot of them scored," he said. "If they're going to score, make them earn it ... I've got to do a better job of attacking them early."
Tyson Ross (1-0, 4.08) is fanning hitters at a high rate with 21 strikeouts in 17 2-3 innings, though he has also walked 12.
Ross is another winless road start shy of matching the longest drought in his career, going 0-4 with a 4.46 ERA in his last six road outings. He's yet to beat Colorado, posting an 0-3 record and 3.21 ERA in five starts. The Padres backed him with only six runs of support in 28 innings in those starts.
Dickerson is 3 for 9 against Ross while Arenado is 1 for 11.
The Padres (10-6) had won nine of 11 and three in a row, but their seven hits were their fewest in 11 games. Yonder Alonso continued his impressive start, though, lifting his average to .365 with a 2-for-4 night. He's 6 for 8 off Lyles with two homers and two doubles.
Colorado's bullpen took a hit with the club placing LaTroy Hawkins on the 15-day disabled list due to biceps tendinitis, though the Rockies reinstated reliever John Axford from the family medical emergency list. Axford, whose two-year-old son returned home after being treated in a hospital for rattlesnake bites suffered during spring training, worked a perfect eighth inning Wednesday.
The only time San Diego has captured a four-game series at Coors Field was July 10-13, 1997.
