At the trade deadline the Padres had two clear needs: offense and bullpen. They addressed both of them with high-profile trades.
On Thursday night the Padres two biggest issues were offense and bullpen in a 3-1 loss to the lowly Nationals to start a 4-game series at Petco Park.
San Diego's only run came on a solo home run by the scalding hot Manny Machado, who ripped a solo shot off Anibal Sanchez in the 4th inning. The difference in this one came with the bases loaded.
In the 7th inning the Padres put three runners on with one out and the top of the order coming up. Trent Grisham and Juan Soto both struck out.
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In the 9th inning the Nationals got two runners on with a pair of singles against Yu Darvish. Yes, the guy who started the game. Darvish was fantastic. He had allowed just one run on a solo HR by Ildemaro Vargas and struck out six with no walks and thrown fewer than 100 pitches when he was replaced by Josh Hader, the closer the Padres landed from Milwaukee who was supposed to solve their late-inning issues.
Hader hit former Friar Luke Voit in the leg then walked Nelson Cruz on four pitches to bring in what turned out to be the winning run and hand Darvish a loss he doesn't deserve. Washington got one more on a sacrifice fly but with the way San Diego's offense was going just the one run was enough.
The Padres got two runners on with walks to Wil Myers and Ha-Seong Kim but Jurickson Profar grounded into a double play to end it. The loss drops the Padres lead over the Brewers to 1.0 game for the final National League Wild Card spot.
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