A Rally Good Show

Scoreboard watchers saw it even before the first pitch at Jack Murphy Stadium Wednesday night.

The Montreal Expos had lost to the Philadelphia Phillies.

If nothing else, a shot at some wild-card breathing room for the San Diego Padres, who would blow that and more.

The Colorado Rockies, with baseball’s worst road record, made it two in a row over the stunned Padres, 5-3.

San Diego remained 1 1/2 games ahead of the Expos in the wild-card race but fell 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the National League West.

If the Dodgers complete a series sweep against the San Francisco Giants while the Padres are idle tonight, San Diego will be three games behind with three to play when they arrive at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.

Is it down to the wild card for the Padres?

“We still want to win the division,” Tony Gwynn said. “I mean, that’s been our focus since spring training when Boch [Manager Bruce Bochy] had his first meeting and told us we were good enough to do it.

“You work hard for six months because you want to win. You want to go into the playoffs on a positive note, but would I be disappointed to go as the wild card? Don’t be foolish.

“I haven’t given up on winning the division, but the bottom line is the opportunity to move on. All 25 of us would be happy to be there [as winner or wild card].”

Nevertheless, the missed opportunities of the two games against Colorado, which completed its road campaign at 28-53, will be hard for the Padres to forget.

After stranding 13 batters in Tuesday night’s 5-4, 11-inning loss, the Padres stranded eight more Wednesday while wasting several threats and hitting shot after shot right at the Rockies.

A misty night matched the mood of a crowd of 32,706, not to mention the Padres, who completed their regular-season home schedule at 45-36, matching their best ever.

Could it have been better? Consider:

The Padres scored only one run in the first inning when Gwynn led off with a double and Steve Finley followed with a single.

They scored only one run in the seventh when Jody Reed doubled, Scott Livingstone singled and Gwynn doubled again.

They wasted a single and walk in the fourth, a leadoff single in the fifth and had two on in the ninth when Finley grounded out against Bruce Ruffin to end a scoreless inning and the game.

Mark Thompson, who came in 8-11 with a 5.34 earned-run average, frustrated the Padres for 6 1/3 innings before three relievers shut them out over the last 2 2/3 innings.

Greg Vaughn slugged his 41st homer and 10th as a Padre, and Gwynn had a single in addition to his two doubles, emerging with a .357 average, but the Padres never caught up after Joey Hamilton yielded two runs for a 2-1 Colorado lead in the third.

Hamilton gave up only three hits in 7 2/3 innings of Friday’s 4-2 victory over the Dodgers but failed to retain that form, lasting only five innings.

Ellis Burks did most of the damage. His double, followed by an Andres Galarraga single, highlighted that two-run third, and he followed a single by Quinton McCracken with his 39th homer in the fifth. McCracken added a solo homer off Willie Blair in the seventh.

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s loss, the Padres might have known this one would test their resiliency.

Gwynn had referred to the media questioning of several Bochy moves in that game when he sat on the bench before Wednesday’s and said:

“You can second-guess all you want, but how many chances did we have to win? How many people did we leave on base? It should never have come down to the manager. It was frustrating, but we have to forget and move on.”

Now they have another reason to forget and move on, but they do so as more of a wild-card contender than a division contender.