Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse for the scuffling San Diego Padres, it did in their 5-4 loss on Thursday.
With a 4-2 lead against the Pittsburgh Pirates in the bottom of the seventh inning, reliever Tim Hill picked up a soft ground ball from Jack Suwinksi and airmailed it past two Padres infielders and into shallow right field, allowing two Pittsburgh runs to score and tying the game.
Just one out later, Pirates rookie phenom Henry Davis hit a go-ahead single against Luis Garcia, putting Pittsburgh up for good.
The Padres had led most of the game after homers from Trent Grisham and Ha-Seong Kim and a strong start from Joe Musgrove.
It was the latest in a series of miscues during a midseason Padres collapse, in which the star-studded team with lofty expectations has skidded to a 37-44 record.
“It’s really bad right now,” said Musgrove, who threw six innings of two-run ball before the collapse, according to MLB.com. “I know from the outside it looks like a lot of overpaid guys who aren’t performing well. Sometimes, there’s no answer. It’s been a tough first half of the season, and we feel it.
“But if you think this team is rolling over, you’re sorely mistaken. We’re trying to find out what it is. We’re switching up routines, having meetings, talking about all these things, but it’s just not going our way right now. It feels like every loss that goes by piles on and piles on and piles on.”
San Diego, which has assembled a star quartet of Fernando Tatís Jr., Manny Machado, Juan Soto, and Xander Bogaerts, was expected to compete with the Dodgers for the NL West crown, but both California teams have fallen behind the surprising Diamondbacks, who lead the division over the Giants by two games.
Manager Bob Melvin said the team just hasn’t been able to click in any facet of the game.
“I’ve said all year we probably haven’t gotten our timing right,” Melvin said after the game. “We scored some runs early and [Musgrove] does a nice job. Obviously when you make an error late in the game, it costs you, though.”