SAN DIEGO – Despite taking an early lead, the San Diego Padres ran into trouble in the middle innings and couldn’t rally in an 8-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals on Saturday night at Petco Park.
San Diego (61-50) scored runs in each of the first three innings, punctuated by Jackson Merrill bashing a fastball 415 feet to straight away center field for his eighth long ball of the year to build a 4-0 lead. But the Cardinals (56-56) scored four in the fourth and two in the fifth to turn and ultimately decide the game.
"We cannot pitch five innings every night out of our bullpen with 50 games to go, you just can't do it," said manager Mike Shildt after starter Randy Vásquez did not make it through the fifth inning.
Masyn Wynn hit a two-RBI double to give the visitors the lead off reliever Jeremiah Estrada in the fifth, reaching to chop a low slider into the left field corner that scored Iván Herrera and Alec Burleson. St. Louis had almost as many hits (5-for-14) as the Padres (2-for-6) had at bats with runners in scoring position.
After stranding a runner in scoring position each of the first two innings, Vásquez got into trouble in the fourth inning by allowing a leadoff double by Wilson Contreras and a one-out single by Wynn. Nolan Gorman lined an RBI single past the diving attempt by Xander Bogaerts into center field, then Pedro Pagés turned on an inside curveball and hit it into the second deck of the Western Metal Supply building to tie the game.
Luis Arraez had extended his hitting streak to a career-best 15 games with a one-out double in the first, then came home on Manny Machado’s hit that the third baseman was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double. It extended Machado’s hit streak to 10 games and was his 13th RBI over the stretch.
Ramón Laureano picked up his first hit as a Padre an inning later, inside-outing a sweeper down the right field line for a triple that scored Bogaerts. Freddy Fermin brought him home with a one-out grounder to second in his first at bat with San Diego that pushed the lead to 3-0.
"It looked good...it's a good lineup. The other calculus of this is we've been scoring, we scored four runs and I thought we'd score some more runs," Shildt said.
But after the two-out Merrill home run in the third, Cardinals starter Michael McGreevy settled in and allowed just one more runner to reach second base. He finished with seven hits and four runs allowed in six innings with four strikeouts and a walk to pick up his third win.
The Padres wouldn’t score again until the ninth when pinch hitter Jose Iglesias led off with a walk, and after taking second on a Laureano ground out, came home on an RBI single by Fermin off reliever Garrett Hampson.
Vásquez got the hook after allowing a leadoff single in the fifth inning, making it his fourth consecutive start where he did not throw five innings and 12th time this season. He allowed five runs on eight hits with three strikeouts, with four of the runs coming in the fourth inning and the big damage being the three-run home run in his fifth loss of the season.
The Cardinals added a pair of additional runs in the eighth after loading the bases against Yuki Matsui with one out. Burleson had an RBI single and Contreras added a sacrifice fly to give the Redbirds additional breathing room.
Estrada finished with a hit and run allowed in his inning of work, that also saw a walk and three strikeouts. Wandy Peralta did not allow a hit and struck out a pair in the sixth inning, then David Morgan threw two innings without a hit and had a K and a walk. Matsui allowed the two runs on three hits with a strikeout in his inning of work.
Ryan O’Hearn got his first start with the Brown and Gold, hitting sixth in the lineup as the designated hitter and finishing 0-for-3 with a pair of strikeouts. Fermin started behind the dish as the ninth hitter and finished 1-for-4 with a pair of RBIs.
Dylan Cease (3-10, 4.79 ERA) will start the rubber game for the Padres against Andre Pallante (6-7, 4.62 ERA) with the first pitch scheduled for 1:10 p.m. at Petco Park.