Padres go back to not hitting, lose opener of big series to Cardinals

The Padres arrived in the Gateway City with an opportunity.

“It’s kind of cool,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said Friday afternoon. “I feel like this series is going to dictate a lot. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Probably pragmatic. Doing so would require some reason to believe the Padres can score on a consistent basis.

After they batted their way into making this weekend’s three games against the Cardinals a big series, the Padres went back to being punchless for most of their first game here.

Their fighting chance to make the playoffs could be fleeting, as they were defeated by the Cardinals 8-2 Friday night at Busch Stadium. (Box score.)

The victory increased the Cardinals’ lead over the Padres to 1½ games in the race for the National League’s second wild-card spot. The Reds’ beat the Dodgers on Friday to remain a game back of the Cardinals and move a half-game in front of the Padres.

“It feels nice to get a win and it feels better to do it against one of the teams we’re battling right now,” said Cardinals starting pitcher Miles Mikolas.

The Padres could not relate. They got just three hits in 5 2/3 innings off Mikolas and after battling back had nothing left in their bullpen to prevent the Cardinals from piling on.

The Padres’ two runs came in the seventh inning, on pinch-hitter Jake Cronenworth’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly and a two-out single by Jurickson Profar.

Vince Velasquez, the pitcher the Padres acquired off the scrap heap, did about as well as they could have expected, but the hole he put them in at the start was far too much to overcome.

The Cardinals had a 3-0 lead three batters into the game, on Tommy Edman’s double, Paul Goldschmidt’s RBI single and a home run by Tyler O’Neill at the end of a 10-pitch at-bat.

Velasquez, signed on Wednesday a day after he was released by the Philadelphia Phillies, followed O’Neill’s homer by retiring 11 straight batters before Dylan Carlson homered with two outs in the fourth inning.

The 29-year-old right-hander finished the fourth and his night with a fly ball out.

The Padres put their first batter on base in the second, third and fifth innings but got that runner to second only once and never advanced him further.

Manny Machado’s two-out double in the sixth inning was the Padres’ third hit and drove Mikolas from the game. Adam Frazier made the final out of the sixth on a groundout against T.J. McFarland.

Tommy Pham led off the seventh with a single down the right field line, and Eric Hosmer followed with a double off McFarland. After Austin Nola grounded out to new reliever Luis Garcia, Trent Grisham drew his third walk of the game to load the bases.

Cronenworth, hitting for pitcher Dinelson Lamet after not playing the previous six days because of a finger fracture suffered when he was hit by a pitch Friday in Los Angeles, lofted a fly ball to center field that scored Hosmer.

Profar’s single up the middle made it 4-2 and brought up Tatis as the go-ahead run, but he popped up to first base on an 0-2 sinker.

Cronenworth stayed in the game at shortstop, and Tatis moved to right field, as Ryan Weathers came on to pitch a perfect seventh.

Machado and Frazier began the eighth by looking at called third strikes from Alex Reyes. A walk by Grisham brought in left-hander Genesis Cabrera to face Hosmer, who grounded out to third baseman Nolan Arenado to end the top of the inning.

Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the eighth with a double off Austin Adams, who would load the bases on a walk and a hit batter before Ross Detwiler replaced him and promptly yielded a grand slam by Carlson, a switch-hitting rookie who this time was batting from the right side of the plate.

The Padres’ usual back-end relievers were all unavailable Friday after pitching abundantly in San Francisco.

The Padres swept three games from the Cardinals in May, outscoring them 23-10. As with so many of the things that occurred in the first few months of this season, that hardly seems like it happened in 2021.

Friday’s loss ended a two-game win streak, which is hardly a streak except when it is considered it is the Padres’ longest run of victories since they won four straight from Aug. 7 to 10. The Padres have won two in a row just five times since the start of July and have won more than two straight just twice in that span.

Even with their 30-hit, 16-run outburst Wednesday and Thursday in San Francisco, the Padres entered Friday with a major league low .213 batting average over their previous 31 games. Their 3.5 runs were game was also the lowest average in the majors in that time.

The Cardinals who have ascended to playoff position, came into Friday’s game having won five straight games and seven of eight. They were hitting .302 over the previous five games.

After smacking the three hits off Velasquez at the start, their only hit over the next six innings was Carlson’s homer in the fourth.

The situation for the Padres is that they could still grab hold of the National League’s second wild-card spot. They were not going to leave for home on Sunday evening with the playoffs locked up, but they could leave with the spot all but lost.

Losses the next two days would leave them 3½ games behind the Cardinals with the Reds between them.

A split of the final two games would mean the Padres were still 1½ back.

Winning the final two would put the Padres up by a half-game.

The reality is it would still leave them with 12 games (plus 2½ innings to complete in a game they lead against the Braves) against three first-place teams. The Padres return home to host the Giants and Braves next week and conclude the season with a six-game trip to San Francisco and Los Angeles.