SAN DIEGO – The marquee starting pitching match up was as advertised, but a taxed San Diego Padres bullpen gave up a pair of runs in the eighth inning, losing 2-1 to the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday night at Petco Park.
Nick Pivetta pitched seven scoreless innings and Fernando Tatis Jr. hit his 21st home run for San Diego (79-67), which was the only mistake allowed by Reds (74-72) starter Andrew Abbott across eight innings. But Elly De La Cruz and Miguel Andujar had eighth inning RBI singles to turn the game around.
“We ended up getting through the game giving up two runs, that’ll typically win you a lot of baseball games, so I thought the pitching was good tonight and we just couldn’t put anything together consistently offensively,” said manager Mike Shildt. “Abbott was good, (his) changeup got better I thought as the game went, but Tatis put a swing on him — I just didn’t see the ability to make any adjustments as the game went… I didn’t as consistently, I know the effort was there but we just weren’t able to do anything consistently and he was able to get through eight.”
After leaving runners in scoring position in the third and fourth innings, the Padres took their first lead of the series when Tatis turned on an elevated, full-count fastball and hit it 377 feet out to left field. He’s hit home runs in four of his last seven games, and three of the last four games at Petco Park.
But it was the only offense of the night, as San Diego went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. Three came in the ninth inning when Gavin Sheets led off with a double down the line in left field. But a pop out and fly out, then a strike out with pinch runner Jose Iglesias at third sealed reliever Tony Santillan’s sixth save.
“Just in-game adjustments. There’s no simple one answer right now, just see the game, feel the game and go with it,” Tatis said when asked about what Padres hitters can do to adjust.
Pivetta had pitched through the sixth inning for the 10th time in his last 11 starts, dealing his seventh seven-inning effort by working around four hits and a walk while striking out eight. It was his sixth scoreless start of the campaign, getting four fastball strikeouts (three with the four-seamer and one with the sinker), three with the sweeper and one with a curveball.
The San Diego starter allowed Cincinnati to generate only three RISP opportunities against him, getting a pair of outs in the third innings — which was the only time the Reds had a runner reach third base against him — as well as inducing a Gavin Lux pop out to end the sixth.
For the second straight night the Padres outfield robbed a potential home run, as Ramón Laureano leapt and reached over the wall to snag a 366-foot blast by Ke’Bryan Hayes in left field. It was the final out of the seventh inning, drawing a huge reaction of relief from Pivetta.
Cincinnati flipped the game around in the eighth inning when TJ Friedl reached on a bunt single against Kyle Hart when the reliever was unable to get off the mound cleanly to field it. Then with two outs Adrian Morejon came on and allowed a single through the right side to De La Cruz that tied the game despite a close play at home on a throw by Tatis.
Andujar pinch-hit for Lux and blooped a short fly out to shallow left field off an inside slider, scoring De La Cruz and giving the visitors the lead. It was just the fifth time this season that the Padres lost after holding the lead through the seventh inning, as the late rally backed up Abbott’s five hit, one run, two walk and six strikeout effort for his ninth win.
Morejon took his fifth loss of the season, going ⅔ an inning and allowing two hits, one run and three walks before Yuki Matsui replaced him with inherited men on first and second. The lefty walked his first man, but got a backwards K and then got De La Cruz to ground back to him for a force out.
With the loss the Padres fell to three games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West after LA’s 9-0 win over the Colorado Rockies, as well as seven games behind the Chicago Cubs for the top NL Wild Card spot. However the Brown and Gold retained their 3.5 game lead over the final Wild Card New York Mets, who dropped their fifth straight game after getting handled by the Philadelphia Phillies.
“We got (Cincinnati’s) best three arms this series, it was a hard fought back-and-forth game, their bullpen’s got some real strengths back there that was on display. We were able to come back and win the first game, yesterday was nip-and-tuck and today was nip-and-tuck, so you’re going to have nip-and-tuck games where you’re gonna lose,” Shildt said.
“It’s a little more execution on our part, we’ve got a better chance, but ultimately over the last week I feel really comfortable about how we’re playing and our starting pitching is doing, a really nice job defense has been good, just a matter of the consistency of the at bats.”
Up next is a four-game series against Colorado, which will begin with Randy Vásquez (4-6, 3.91 ERA) starting the opener against McCade Brown (0-3, 12.54 ERA). First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 p.m. on Thursday at Petco Park.
This story was updated at 9:59 p.m.