Pirates strand 10 runners as Padres win by shutout to snap 5-game winning streak

There would be no hoisting of the cone for the Pittsburgh Pirates, who encountered a traffic jam on the bases against the San Diego Padres.

The Pirates followed a sweep of the Baltimore Orioles with their second shutout loss, a 5-0 defeat Monday night that snapped their five-game winning streak before 8,446 on a 52-degree night at PNC Park.

The Pirates went 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position, leaving nine men on base in their seventh consecutive loss to San Diego at PNC Park since sweeping the Padres in a three-game series July 2023.

A day after three pitchers combined for 14 strikeouts without a walk in the series-clinching win over the Orioles, Pirates starter Bubba Chandler (0-1) had as many walks (four) as strikeouts in allowing three runs on five hits over 4 1/3 innings. Padres starter German Marquez (1-1) tossed five scoreless innings, striking out four with six hits and one walk.

Chandler walked Xander Bogaerts, who reached second base on a two-out single by Nick Castellanos, but struck out Freddy Fermin to strand both runners in the top of the second.

The Pirates threatened to score before a baserunning snafu. Ryan O’Hearn drew a leadoff walk and advanced to second on a Nick Gonzales single but was caught in no-man’s land when third base coach Tony Beasley gave a late stop sign on a Spencer Horwitz single to right. Gonzales continued to third, forcing O’Hearn to try to score. Fernando Tatis Jr.’s throw beat him to home plate, and the Pirates left two runners on base on Konnor Griffin’s broken-bat groundout to first.

The Padres capitalized against Chandler in the third. Manny Machado drew a one-out walk, advanced to second on a Bogaerts single to left and to third when Gavin Sheets grounded into a forceout. Castellanos doubled to left to drive in Machado for a 1-0 lead, and put a pair of runners in scoring position but Chandler struck out Fermin again.

Chandler walked leadoff batter Jake Cronenworth to start the fifth, and Ramon Laureano followed by grounding into a forceout at second. Tatis drew another walk. Then Jackson Merrill hit a fly ball to left field that Bryan Reynolds had trouble tracking, stumbling at the warning track as it bounced over for a ground-rule double that scored Laureano for a 2-0 lead. Yohan Ramirez replaced Chandler and got Machado to hit a comebacker that drove in Tatis to give the Padres a three-run advantage.

Oneil Cruz singled down the right-field line, stole second base and reached third on a throwing error by Fermin to put the Pirates in scoring position with one out in the fifth, but Brandon Lowe popped up to third and Reynolds flied out to left to end the scoring threat.

Fermin hit a two-out double to left in the sixth and scored on Cronenworth’s double to right to push the Padres to a 4-0 lead. O’Hearn hit a leadoff double to the left-field corner in the bottom of the sixth and reached third on a fly out to right by Gonzales but was stranded.

The Padres padded their lead to 5-0 against Justin Lawrence in the eighth, when Fermin singled to center and scored from first on Laureano’s double to the right field corner when O’Hearn threw to second base instead of hitting the cutoff man.

Lowe and Reynolds drew back-to-back walks to start the eighth, but O’Hearn hit into a 4-6-3 double play and Marcell Ozuna grounded out to short to strand Lowe at third base and drop his batting average to .067 (2 for 30), drawing boos from the crowd.

Gonzales drew a one-out walk in the ninth, but Griffin struck out and pinch hitter Jake Mangum bunted into a groundout to end the game.

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