PADRES FAIL TO HOLD LEAD
Crismatt allows first home run of season after Darvish departs
Still not cleared to officially face pitching, Fernando Tatis Jr. spent the early innings of a sunny afternoon in the shade of a brown bucket hat at the dugout railing. Wil Myers is a bit closer but only taking soft-toss swings as he pushes his way back from knee inflammation. Manny Machado is not on the injured list, but his ailing left ankle has not quite allowed him to force his way into pinch-hit consideration. Trent Grisham started a second straight game on the bench with a sore shoulder and Luke Voit has been slowed by both a balky hamstring and calf, essentially leaving the Padres with a two-man bench.
That razor-thin margin of error wound up too thin to survive Sunday.
What’s left of the Padres’ lineup managed one good rally, Yu Darvish exited after striking out a season-high nine batters over six innings and Nabil Crismatt coughed up the lead in a span of 11 pitches in an 8-5 loss to the Phillies in front of a sellout crowd of 41,620 at Petco Park.
“We weren’t great offensively this series,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said after dropping three of four to the Phillies here and four of seven in the season series. “But (we did enough) to score five runs and feel pretty good about it. This was a tough stretch we just ended, too. …
“I think everyone was a little rundown toward the end of it. Had a chance to win the game, but we could use the off-day.” Clearly.
Even with Sunday’s loss, the Padres went 10-8 while playing 18 games in 17 days and 17-14 while playing 31 games in 31 days.
Tatis still has not played an inning this year. Machado spent the last week working to avoid the injured list after sustaining what looked like a devastating ankle sprain in Colorado. Grisham sat the last two days with a shoulder injury, Voit was out of the starting lineup twice in a four-day span and on
Sunday rookie reliever Steven Wilson hit the 15-day injured list with hamstring tendinitis.
That made it all that much more difficult for Crismatt to stomach allowing his first homer of the season as the Padres, despite all of those obstacles, stood just nine outs away from salvaging a series split.
He’d allowed just five runs all year, too, but Crismatt walked Bryson Stott on five pitches, Matt Vierling singled through the infield and Kyle Schwarber deposited a 2-1 change-up in the second deck in left field to give the Phillies the lead for good. Insurance runs crossed the plate in the eighth and ninth, respectively, on Garrett Stubbs’ single and a wild pitch.
“Some days are like that,” Crismatt said. “Just started slowly that inning. Walked that first guy and then got behind Schwarber, threw my best pitch and hit it pretty good.
“It’s OK. I just have to f lush this, take the day off tomorrow and be ready for the next game.”
Given the lead, a Phillies bullpen that did not allow a hit through the first three games of the series cruised until Eric Hosmer’s double off left-hander Jose Alvarado to start the eighth.
Hosmer, however, was stranded when Austin Nola grounded out to the pitcher, Voit struck out as a pinchhitter and Ha-Seong Kim flied out to center and Andrew Bellatti sat down the side in order in the ninth.
After scoring just five runs in the first three games of the series, the Padres
pushed a run across in the first inning without a hit — a walk, a hit batter, a fly ball and Hosmer’s tapper to first.
Two innings later, twoout damage staked Darvish to a 5-2 lead, with Nola splitting the left-center alley to plate two runs, Gibson loading the bases with back-toback walks and CJ Abrams
scoring two more with a ground-rule double to rightcenter.
Stolen bases helped set up Stott’s run-scoring single and Schwarber’s run-scoring double in the second as the Phillies pushed Darvish’s pitch count to 40. After a quick third and fourth frame, the Phillies cut the Padres’ lead to 5-3 on
Rhys Hoskins’ one-out double and Nick Castellanos’ third single of the game.
Darvish exited after the sixth inning sitting on a fourth straight quality start.
The nine strikeouts were one better than his previous season high. He allowed three runs on seven hits and a walk and threw 66 of his 102 pitches for strikes before
handing a two-run lead over to Crismatt.
“I mean, he had to battle hard,” Melvin said of Darvish. “It was hot out there. What, six innings, three runs, left with a tworun lead. Again, he did his job and it’s a game we usually win.”