RALLY COMES UP SHORT
Padres dig five-run hole, close the gap but can’t overcome Lugo’s poor start
The Royals, who are not a good team, tried to help the Padres, who are a poorhitting team, dig themselves out of an early hole.
Then the bad team played really well and closed out a 5-4 victory.
The Padres scored more than three runs in a second consecutive game for the first time in nearly two weeks. But a night after ending a losing streak at five games, they could not begin a winning streak against a team that would celebrate its 13th victory in 44 games.
Seth Lugo departed after two innings with a calf strain incurred while running to cover first base on the final out of the Royals’ five-run second.
As four relievers worked seven innings without allowing further damage, the Padres did all the rest of the scoring.
But in the end, the Royals executed two pickoffs to foil would-be rallies in the seventh and eighth innings.
After Lugo turned in the shortest outing by a Padres starter this season — the first time in 14 games and just the seventh time this season the Padres did not get at least five innings from a starter — the Padres (20-23) fought back from that deficit with no small effort from the Royals.
Two errors helped the Padres to two unearned runs in the fifth, and an illadvised dive helped them score twice more in the sixth.
The Padres had seven hits and scored all their runs off Royals starter Brady Singer, who brought a 7.71 ERA into the game. Singer had been allowing opponents a .294 batting average.
The runs he allowed Tuesday were only marginally on him.
In the fifth inning, Brett
Sullivan’s two-out single grounded through the right side rolled under right fielder MJ Melendez’s glove, allowing Sullivan to get to second base. Then, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a ground ball to Matt Duffy that the Royals second baseman bobbled, picked up and hurriedly threw wide of the bag, allowing Tatis to be safe and Sullivan to score. Jake Cronenworth followed with a triple down the right-field line that cut the deficit to 5-2 before Juan Soto’s strikeout ended the inning.
After Xander Bogaerts led off the sixth inning with
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