The San Diego Padres bolstered their beleaguered rotation at the trade deadline, but back on the field their offensive issues resurfaced in the first game of their four-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks as they lost a 5-1 game to take a step back in the standings.
This was a Michael King outing, which means the Padres had a real starter on the mound, but unfortunately the inert offense made that irrelevant. King swapped zeroes with Arizona starter Brandon Pfaadt for the first three innings, but he gave up a three-spot in the fourth that basically but the game away.
The Diamondbacks got their runs on a three-run homer from Tim Tawa after a walk to Ketel Marte and a single by Adrian Del Castillo to give Arizona a 3-0 lead.
The best the Padres could do to counter was an unearned run in the seventh that scored Ty France as third baseman Nolan Arenado made a throwing error, but whatever hope the Padres had of mounting a comeback vanishe the next inning as Arizona got two more off reliever Wandy Peralta.
Those runs came via an RBI double by James McCann, which was followed by a sacrifice fly from Jorge Barrosa that scored Tawa, who had a big offensive night with three hits, three RBIs and a pair of runs scored.
The Padres got just six hits in this one as Praadt earned his sixth win of the year to go to 6-1, with Campusano getting the lone extra base hit with a double to go with his infield hit in the seventh. The top five hitters managed one hit in 19 at-bats, so that was the story offensively.
San Diego did manage to bolster it's rotation by picking up Robbie Ray and Casey Mize, but the results in this one underscored the need to pick up another bat. The Padres went into the deadline looking to add a left-handed hitter, but they got skunked in their efforts on that front as the Diamondbacks added Lars Nootbar in a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.
The loss dropped the Padres to two games behind Arizona in both the NL West standings and the wild card race, so there's plenty of urgency going forward this week. The Miami Marlins are also even with the Padres in the standings, and a series loss would undo a lot of the strong work San Diego did during their recent hot streak to get back in the hunt.
