SAN DIEGO (AP) — Ty France went 3 for 3 with a home run and scored three times as the surging San Diego Padres finished a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies with a 7-2 victory Sunday.
Ramón Laureano hit a two-run homer and Jackson Merrill also went deep for the Padres, who have won five in a row and eight of nine. However, starting pitcher Nick Pivetta exited with right elbow stiffness in the fourth inning.
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Colorado Rockies pitcher Valente Bellozo (56) hands the ball to manager Warren Schaeffer as he exits during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, right, celebrates his home run with teammate Manny Machado during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres pitcher Nick Pivetta, center, reacts before exiting during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Ty France, right, celebrates with third base coach Bob Henley after hitting a home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Ramón Laureano hits a two-run home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
Brett Sullivan had a two-run double for the Rockies, who were held to a pair of hits. Colorado arrived in San Diego on a four-game winning streak.
Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly gave the Padres a 1-0 lead in the first against emergency opener Jimmy Herget (0-1), who got the start when Kyle Freeland was a late scratch with left shoulder soreness.
Pivetta retired the Rockies in order through three innings, striking out four before leaving after throwing a fastball to even the count at 2-2 on Edouard Julien leading off the fourth.
Kyle Hart came in and got the next seven outs. He gave up Sullivan’s two-out double in the fifth that cut it to 3-2.
Freddy Fermin hit a sacrifice fly against Chase Dollander for a 2-0 lead in the second and France launched his first home run of the season — off Valente Bellozo — to make it 3-0 in the fourth. Bellozo threw 90 pitches in relief, allowing five runs in 4 1/3 innings.
Machado had an RBI single for a 4-2 lead in the fifth after Merrill singled and stole second base.
Laureano, who had a three-run homer in Saturday’s victory, hit his fourth of the season — a two-out, two-run shot after France's single to make it 6-2 in the sixth.
Merrill capped the scoring in the seventh with a leadoff homer — his third.
David Morgan (2-0) struck out four in 1 2/3 hitless innings for the win. Wandy Peralta and Bradgley Rodriguez finished for the Padres.
San Diego’s only other four-game sweep of Colorado came in 1999.
The Rockies begin a three-game series in Houston on Tuesday night. They swept three games from the Astros at Coors Field last week before heading to San Diego.
Padres RHP Michael King (1-1, 3.24 ERA) starts Tuesday at home against the Seattle Mariners.
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Colorado Rockies pitcher Valente Bellozo (56) hands the ball to manager Warren Schaeffer as he exits during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the San Diego Padres Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, right, celebrates his home run with teammate Manny Machado during the seventh inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres pitcher Nick Pivetta, center, reacts before exiting during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Ty France, right, celebrates with third base coach Bob Henley after hitting a home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
San Diego Padres' Ramón Laureano hits a two-run home run during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Sunday, April 12, 2026, in San Diego. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
ISLAMABAD (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday said the U.S. Navy would swiftly begin a blockade of ships entering or leaving the strategic Strait of Hormuz, after U.S.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement.
U.S. Central Command announced the blockade would involve all Iranian ports, beginning on Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, or 5:30 p.m. in Iran, to be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations.”
However, CENTCOM said it would still allow ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the strait. Its announcement was a step down from the president’s earlier threat to blockade the entire strait, and allows traffic to flow in the crucial waterway as long as it avoids Iranian ports.
Trump wants to weaken Iran’s key leverage in the war after demanding that it reopen the strait to global traffic on the waterway that was responsible for 20% of global oil shipping before fighting began.
That traffic has been limited even in the days since the ceasefire. Marine trackers say over 40 commercial ships have crossed since the start of the ceasefire.
A U.S. blockade could further rattle global energy markets.
Oil prices rose in early market trading on Sunday after the blockade announcement. The price of U.S. crude rose 8% to $104.24 a barrel, and Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose 7% to $102.29. Brent crude cost roughly $70 per barrel before the war in late February.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard later said the strait remained under Iran’s “full control” and was open for non-military vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported.
During the 21-hour talks this weekend in Pakistan, the U.S. military said two destroyers had transited the strait ahead of mine-clearing work, a first since the war began. Iran denied it.
Trump’s plan to use the Navy to block the strait is unrealistic and he will have to concede on some issues with Iran, said Andreas Krieg, a senior lecturer in security studies at Kings College London. “There isn’t any tool in the toolbox in terms of the military lever that he could use to get his way,” Krieg said.
Trump said Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were at the core of the talks' failure. In comments to Fox News, he again threatened to strike civilian infrastructure.
Iranian parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who led Iran’s side in the talks, addressed Trump in a new statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”
The face-to-face talks that ended early Sunday were the highest-level negotiations between the longtime rivals since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Neither indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.
“We need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon,” said Vice President JD Vance, leading the U.S. side.
Iranian negotiators could not agree to all U.S. “red lines,” said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to describe positions on the record. These included Iran never obtaining a nuclear weapon, ending uranium enrichment, dismantling major enrichment facilities and allowing retrieval of its highly enriched uranium, along with opening the Strait of Hormuz and ending funding for Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi rebels.
Iranian officials said talks fell apart over two or three key issues, blaming what they called U.S. overreach. Qalibaf, who noted progress in negotiations, said it was time for the United States “to decide whether it can gain our trust or not.”
Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar said his country will try to facilitate a new dialogue in the coming days. Iran said it was open to continuing dialogue, state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The European Union urged further diplomatic efforts. The foreign minister of Oman, located on the Strait of Hormuz's southern coast, called for parties to “make painful concessions." The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin “emphasized his readiness” to help bring about a diplomatic settlement in a call with Iran's president.
Iran’s nuclear program was at the center of tensions long before the U.S. and Israel launched the war on Feb. 28. The fighting has killed at least 3,000 people in Iran, 2,055 in Lebanon, 23 in Israel and more than a dozen in Gulf Arab states, and damaged infrastructure in half a dozen countries.
Tehran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons but insists on its right to a civilian nuclear program. The landmark 2015 nuclear deal, which Trump later pulled the U.S. out of, took well over a year of negotiations. Experts say Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium, though not weapons-grade, is only a short technical step away.
An Iranian diplomatic official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of closed-door talks, denied that negotiations had failed over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Inside Iran, there was new exhaustion and anger after months of unrest that began with nationwide protests against economic issues and then political ones, followed by weeks of sheltering from U.S. and Israeli bombardment.
“We have never sought war. But if they try to win what they failed to win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” Mohammad Bagher Karami said in Tehran.
Elsewhere in the region, airstrikes calmed over the past day except in Lebanon.
Iran’s 10-point proposal for the talks called for a halt to Israeli strikes on the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has said the ceasefire did not apply there, but Iran and Pakistan said it did.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited parts of southern Lebanon under Israeli control on Sunday, for the first time since the current fighting. Attacks on southern Lebanon have intensified alongside the ground invasion renewed after Hezbollah launched rockets toward Israel in the war’s opening days.
Negotiations between Israel and Lebanon are expected to begin Tuesday in Washington after Israel’s surprise announcement authorizing talks despite their lack of official relations. Israel wants Lebanon to assume responsibility for disarming Hezbollah, but the militant group has survived efforts to curb its strength for decades.
The day the Iran ceasefire deal was announced, Israel pounded Beirut with airstrikes, killing more than 300 people, according to the Health Ministry.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported six people were killed Sunday in Maaroub village near the coastal city of Tyre.
Metz reported from Ramallah, West Bank, Boak from Miami and Magdy from Cairo. Associated Press writers E. Eduardo Castillo in Beijing; Collin Binkley and Ben Finley in Washington; Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut; Brian Melley in London; Ghaya Ben MBarek in Tunis; Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City and Mae Anderson in New York contributed to this report.
Haifa Kenjo, who fled Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, holds her 15-day-old daughter Shiman inside the tent she uses as a shelter and where she gave birth to her in Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Haifa Kenjo, who fled Israeli airstrikes on the southern suburbs of Beirut, holds her 15-day-old daughter Shiman inside the tent she uses as a shelter and where she gave birth to her in Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Civilians and rescue workers search through rubble at the site of a building where efforts continue to recover the body of missing woman Zahraa Aboud, 26, after it was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday, in central Beirut, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
A women sits at a cafe in northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Women walk past a banner depicting the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in the U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, in northern Tehran, Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Vice President JD Vance walking on the tarmac for a planned refueling stop in Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Sunday, April 12, 2026, after attending talks on Iran. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, pool)
Vice President JD Vance, left, talks to Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces and Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, right, and Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, center, before boarding Air Force Two after attending talks on Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
In this photo released by the Pakistan Foreign Ministry, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, center right, and Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, center left, are greeted by Pakistan Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, right, and Army Chief Field Marshal Gen. Asim Munir, left, upon their arrival at Nur Khan airbase in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, Saturday, April 11, 2026. (Pakistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AP)
In this photo released by the Pakistan Prime Minister Office, Iran's Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, left, meets with hand with Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, in Islamabad, Pakistan, Saturday, April 11, 2026 (Pakistan Prime Minister Office via AP)
Vice President JD Vance, second left, shakes hands with Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammad Ishaq Dar, as Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi, left, Pakistan's Chief of Defence Forces Chief of Army Staff Field Marshall Asim Munir, third left, and Charge d'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad Natalie A. Baker, right, look on, as he prepares to board Air Force Two after attending talks on Iran in Islamabad, Pakistan, Sunday, April 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President JD Vance arrives for news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran, Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
Vice President JD Vance, right, speaks during a news conference after meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Iran as Jared Kushner, left, and Steve Witkoff, Special Envoy for Peace Missions listen, on Sunday, April 12, 2026, in Islamabad, Pakistan. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, Pool)
