Exasperation might be the best word to surround the mood around the San Diego Padres.

A year after reaching the National League Championship Series with and with visions of winning the World Series for the first time in franchise history, the Padres have spent the better part of the first three months of this season spinning their wheels.

The Padres’ record is now 37-42 following a 9-4 loss to the Pirates on Tuesday night at PNC Park in Pittsburgh. San Diego is 10 ½ games behind the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West standings and 7 ½ games out of a wild-card playoff berth.

It was another frustrating night for a team build to win it all right now. Owner Peter Seidler has pulled out all the stops with the Padres’ $248-million payroll being the third-largest in the major leagues despite them playing in the nation’s 27^th-largest media market.

Padres manager Bob Melvin isn’t one to scream and holler. However, in his understanded manner, he was clearly unhappy with his team’s performance Tuesday.

After scoring the game’s first three runs in the second inning, the Padres managed only one more run over the last seven innings against the Pirates, who had lost 12 of their previous 13 games.

“We scored three runs and had good momentum then they scored three and that shouldn’t have been it for us,” Melvin said. “It just seems like (the Pirates) had a little bit more spirit the rest of the game than we did.”

Padres star right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. bristled at the idea that his team was flat Tuesday night or that it has been a persistent problem all season. However, Melvin doubled down on that idea.

“I would say typically when you’re not scoring and not playing well, you look flat,” Melvin said. “When you score three runs in the second inning, you should feel good about yourself putting together good at-bats and then just not have it the rest of the game. We got outplayed for sure.”

The inconsistency in scoring runs throughout the season is a head scratcher. Tatis heads a star-studded lineup that includes third baseman Manny Machado, left fielder Juan Soto and shortstop Xander Bogaerts.

All are either in their prime or entering it. Yet the Padres’ average of 4.29 runs scored a game is 20^th among the 30 major-league teams.

Thus, the Padres are wasting a fine season from their pitching staff, which is fifth in MLB with a 3.76 earned run average.

The Padres’ thought that back-to-back games with double-digit runs scored last Thursday and Friday against the San Francisco Giants and Washington Nationals could finally be the springboard to a significant winning streak. San Diego has yet to win more than three games in a row all season.

Instead, the Padres now find themselves on a three-game losing streak.

“We’re not in the best place right now,” Melvin said. “If you had asked me three days ago, I would have said we were on the verge of being in a really good place. It’s been that way all year to where it feels like we’re doing some good things then, all of a sudden, we have bad spurts right after that. You get tired of saying you can sustain something, but we haven’t done it this year.”

And it leaves the Padres wondering if they ever will.

"We have to start turning it around. We have to," said Bogaerts, who was signed to an 11-year, $280-million contract as a free agent in December. “There's not a lot of tomorrows left. The season is coming to an end, not soon, but it is. If we keep tacking on losses, it's going to come quick.”

Melvin isn’t giving up hope but sounds like a man who can’t help but wonder if 2023 is already a lost cause.

“This has been a hard season on everybody,” he said. “There’s a lot of games left. We have to find it at some point. It’s just not happening to this point. We’ll go out there expecting to win and hopefully we find a period where we can sustain something.”