The Padres enigmatic season took another odd and discouraging turn on Sunday afternoon. Not only did they lose a series at home to the Nationals, the team with the worst record in the National League, but they were shut down by their former top prospect and basically gave the game away late with some inexplicable errors in an 8-3 blowout loss.
MacKenzie Gore, part of the package of prospects the Friars sent to Washington for Juan Soto, struck out the first six batters he faced at Petco Park and finished with nine whiffs in 5.0 innings of 1-run ball. As good as he was, that's how bad left-handed reliever Tim Hill was.
The 7th inning was all kinds of weird for Hill. After Manny Machado made a fabulous play to snag a liner from Dominic Smith off his shoelaces for the 1st out, Derek Hill (no relation) bunted right back to Tim, who fielded it cleanly up the 1st base line and made a terrible throw to pull Jake Cronenworth off the bag. The throwing error was the start of a very, very bad day.
Hill's next pitch hit CJ Abrams, another highly touted prospect sent off in the Soto deal, putting two free runners on. Lane Thomas followed with a single to drive in Hill and make it 4-1, then Luis Garcia hit a weak comebacker ... and Hill threw the ball away AGAIN. Luckily Ha-Seong Kim was alertly backing up the play and dove to keep the ball on the infield to prevent any runs from scoring.
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Hill remained in the game to face Jeimer Candelario, who sent a 2-run double to left-centerfield to put it out of reach. Hill's miscues led to five runs in the inning, all unearned, capping a bad week for San Diego's bullpen. But, the relievers were certainly not all to blame. The Padres offense was abysmal again.
The Friars scored 23 runs in two games before getting shut out on Saturday night missed plenty of chances again on Sunday. In the 4th inning they had two runners on with two outs and Cronenworth struck out to end the inning. In the 5th they finally broke through when Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a soft liner into right field with two outs to score Trent Grisham and, at the time, tie the game 1-1. They failed to add on when Soto struck out to end the inning.
Washington took the lead in the top of the 6th with three straight singles off Padres starter Seth Lugo, who allowed three runs in 5.0 innings to take the loss. San Diego had a chance to take control of the game in the bottom half of the inning but, again, could not find the big hit when they needed it. Walks to Machado, Cronenworth, and Matt Carpenter loaded the bases with two outs.
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Gary Sanchez came on to pinch-hit for Trent Grisham. The slugging catcher worked the count to 3-2 against Nationals reliever Joe La Sorsa before striking out on a slider that was probably ball four. After the 7th inning shenanigans, Kim launched a solo home run that ... had the errors not happened ... would have made it a 1-run game and perhaps given the Padres hope. They got another run in the 9th on a Juan Soto RBI single to score Brandon Dixon but all that did was serve as a reminder of all the opportunities they missed when they still had a chance to win it.
Instead, it is not going to be a happy flight to Pittsburgh, where the Padres start a 3-game set against the Pirates on Tuesday.
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