‘A PUNCH TO THE GUT’
Padres fall to 1-5 against Pirates this season with latest painful defeat
It was a moment that encapsulated a season so far.
Fernando Tatis Jr. bent at the waist, hands on his knees for 10 long seconds, in disbelief that what had seemed so right had led only to disappointment.
The symbolism was not lost on Xander Bogaerts.
“It’s just like the season,” Bogaerts said. “We come up short so many times.”
Tatis had tattooed a pitch from Pirates reliever Colin Holderman, sending it screaming through the warm afternoon air at 107.5 mph, a projected 390 feet and into the glove of center fielder Jack Suwinski, standing with his feet practically against the wall that separated the Padres from having tied the game and perhaps from having continued a salvage job on the season.
“I thought I got all of it,” Tatis said.
Once again, no.
All the way through, the 3-2 loss to the Pirates on Wednesday was just perfectly 2023 Padres.
“Terrible,” Tatis said. “We didn’t perform (from) the beginning until the end. Just terrible. It’s what we’ve been doing all year.”
The Padres wasted a gift early, got a fortunate run a bit later and then did virtually nothing offensively for five innings before a rally in the ninth fell short.
Yes, this one was familiar.
It was their fifth loss in six games against the woeful team from Pittsburgh. It dropped their MLB-worst record in one-run games to 6-17. It was the 14th time in their 25 losses at home that they had at least the tying run at the plate in the final inning and failed to finish. And it was another waste of a magnificent outing by a starting pitcher, the MLBhigh 18th time they have lost a game in which they got a quality start.
Seth Lugo was so good. Yet somehow, Johan Oviedo, who couldn’t figure out the mechanics of pitch
ing at the start of the game, ended up getting his first win in more than two months (12 starts).
The Pirates got solo home runs leading off the second, fourth and ninth innings to finish off their visit to Petco Park, where three sellout crowds saw just one Padres victory.
“It’s definitely tough, and we feel so close — momentum, the fans, everything else just feels so positive,” Bogaerts said. “And then the outcome is negative.”
The Padres did not take advantage of Oviedo (4-11, 4.60) when they had a chance, scoring just one cheap run off him in his six innings and not really putting up any sort of fight until down to their final two outs. And then, after having the bases loaded with one out in the ninth, those two outs came quickly to end a loss that dropped them to 49-54 heading into an off-day six days before the trade deadline.
It is by that point, by 3 p.m. PT Tuesday, that the men who make the personnel decisions must decide whether and to what extent to improve the team for the season’s final two months.
The Padres are not making it easy on them. They are 12-9 in July but remain 6½ games behind in the National League wild-card race
“If we had won two out of three here it would be different than losing two out of three,” Bogaerts said. “That was a tough one.”
Home runs by Ji Man Choi (in the second) and Bryan Reynolds (in the fourth) were the only hits Lugo (4-5, 3.62) allowed through his first 52⁄3 innings. A single by Reynolds was followed by four outs that completed Lugo’s first seven-inning outing since his first start of the season. He finished with a season-high eight strikeouts and did not walk a batter.
Carlos Santana’s homer
leading off the ninth inning against Robert Suarez completed Pittsburgh’s scoring.
Oviedo allowed just one run, and that was a fluke. And that was after he practically gifted the Padres a run in the first inning.
Oviedo was charged with three automatic balls in the first — ball four to Tatis, a ball before a pitch was thrown to Manny Machado and a ball that put Bogaerts
up 2-0 — because he came set before the batter was engaged. And yet he got out of the inning unscathed.
Tatis reaching gave the Padres runners at first and second with no outs. Machado then hit the first pitch he saw on the ground to Akila Williams, a Rancho Bernardo High alumnus who made his major league debut Tuesday as a defensive replacement and was
making his first start Wednesday. Williams began a double play on Machado’s 104.2 mph grounder and then caught a 105.1 mph line drive by Bogaerts to end the inning.
“We had that pitcher on the ropes,” Bogaerts said. “He was so confused with the clock and the way he’s gonna pitch and not looking at the hitter and whatnot. Manny hit a hard ball, double play. I hit a hard line drive right at someone. We end up scoring none.”
Choi gave the Pirates a 1-0 lead by pulling a 3-1 sinker a projected 384 feet to right field.
The Padres accepted a gift in the third, tying the game 1-1 when Ha-Seong Kim walked with one out and scored on Machado’s double, which was actually a pop fly to shallow left field that fell between Williams and Reynolds, the left fielder who had been playing deep against Machado.
The Pirates retook the lead when Reynolds swatted the first pitch of the fourth inning the other way and just over the wall in left field.
Oviedo set down the Padres in order in the fourth and fifth and got a doubleplay grounder to end the sixth.
Carmen Mlodzinski worked a perfect seventh before Holderman worked a perfect eighth, getting the final out of the inning on the drive by Tatis.
The Padres loaded the bases with one out in the ninth against Pirates closer David Bednar, following Machado’s strikeout with a 12-pitch walk by Bogaerts, a single by Luis Campusano and Jake Cronenworth taking a pitch off his foot.
Juan Soto, pinch-hitting for Gary Sánchez, walked to bring in a run before Taylor Kohlwey popped out in foul territory and Trent Grisham struck out.
“We keep talking about frustration and urgency and all those words that we keep using and they’re still going to pop up until we change the narrative, unfortunately,” manager Bob Melvin said. “But really today was a different feeling in the ninth inning once Xander got on. We really feel like we were going to finish that thing off.”
Yes, they fought. And they failed again.
“This is a punch to the gut,” Tatis said. “It’s just bad. It’s just bad all the ways you’re trying to see it.”