On so many days and nights where their bats might as well have been toothpicks, the Padres have won games with superb pitching and solid defense.<\/p>\n
That combination faltered Sunday, as they closed out what is traditionally known as the first half of the season with a 2-1 loss to the Phillies at Petco Park<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it wasn\u2019t for those costly errors \u2026\u201d Manny Machado said.<\/p>\n
That was about the only lament the Padres had after finishing the longest homestand of the season with a 6-4 record to go into the All-Star break eight games over .500 (52-44) and in possession of the National League\u2019s final playoff spot.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis last week, we faced some pretty good pitching here,\u201d Machado said. \u201cWe kind of locked in a little bit as an offense, and that\u2019s who we are as a collective group. So it\u2019s a good way to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n
But on Sunday, a couple rarities cost the Padres a chance at their first four-game winning streak since the beginning of May.<\/p>\n
The Phillies scored in the first inning thanks to two errors by Padres infielders and in the eighth inning with the first run against Adrian Morej\u00f3n in his past 16 appearances.<\/p>\n
Padres starter Nick Pivetta went 6\u2154 innings in the final start of the best first half of his career, as his ERA dropped to 2.88 after he yielded three hits and two walks and just the unearned run.<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 Christopher S\u00e1nchez (8-2, 2.50) got the win after allowing one run on six hits and three walks while working through the first out of the eighth inning.<\/p>\n
That is because the Phillies doubled twice in the top of the eighth.<\/p>\n
Morej\u00f3n took over for Pivetta with a runner on first base and struck out Kyle Schwarber to end the seventh inning and got Trea Turner on a line drive to center field to start the eighth. But Bryce Harper followed with a double down the left field line through the hole where Machado would have been had the infield not been shifted for the left-handed-hitting Harper to pull.<\/p>\n
David Morgan came in to face Nick Castellanos and struck him out. Morgan might have also struck out J.T. Realmuto had home plate umpire Bruce Dreckman called strikes on the first two pitches, which were both in the zone.<\/p>\n
Instead, Realmuto lined a 3-1 slider to the gap in left-center field for an RBI double.<\/p>\n
That run was charged to Morej\u00f3n (7-4, 1.85) and ended his scoreless streak at 16 innings. It was also the first earned run he had allowed since May 17, a span of 25 games.<\/p>\n
The Phillies\u2019 first run was the product of Machado and first baseman Luis Arraez combining for two errors \u2014 half as many as the Padres infield had combined for over the team\u2019s previous 41 games.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re playing excellent defense,\u201d Shildt said. \u201cDidn\u2019t make a couple plays. They happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pivetta began the game by striking out Schwarber and Turner before walking Harper and then having the corners of the infield crumble around him.<\/p>\n
Machado fielded Castellanos\u2019 grounder and short-hopped a throw to first base that caromed off Arraez\u2019s glove. Realmuto then dribbled a ball toward third base that Machado ran up and tried to barehand but could not. And, with the bases loaded, Bryson Stott rolled a ball to the right side that Arraez fielded and threw high to first base, where Pivetta and Stott arrived around the same time as the ball went off Pivetta\u2019s glove.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just kind of got out of hand,\u201d Machado said. \u201cI mean, Nick pitched his butt off today. And if it wasn\u2019t for those costly errors that we gave him there \u2014 I mean, it was an easy out. Should have made a better throw. Should have hit him in the chest, got out of the inning. Short bounce, unacceptable. And then obviously the next ground ball comes to Luis, and then Nick drops it. If it wasn\u2019t for me, I started it all. So it wouldn\u2019t have happened if I hit him in the chest.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harper crossed the plate on Stotts\u2019 grounder with what \u2014 given S\u00e1nchez\u2019s excellence and the Padres\u2019 struggles offensively much of the past two months \u2014 seemed could conceivably be the only run the Phillies would need.<\/p>\n
The Padres failed to score in the bottom of the first after having Fernando Tatis Jr. at second base with one out and the bases loaded with two outs.<\/p>\n
The patience they showed in drawing two walks in the first inning \u2014 twice as many as S\u00e1nchez had issued in his previous five games \u2014 was not much of an option over the next three innings.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez threw just six of his next 28 pitches outside the strike zone in that span, and one of those was called a strike. The Padres also had three one-pitch at-bats, and their only hit in those three innings was Xander Bogaerts\u2019 check-swing infield single.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez was not quite as efficient in the fifth, and Tatis got his second single of the game before Arraez struck out.<\/p>\n
S\u00e1nchez had thrown just 62 pitches through five innings.<\/p>\n
Machado began the bottom of the sixth with a single grounded through the middle of the infield on the first pitch of his at-bat. Bogaerts moved Machado to third with a single on a 2-1 pitch, and both of them moved up a base on Jackson Merrill\u2019s sacrifice bunt.<\/p>\n
With the infield in on the grass, Jose Iglesias tied the game with a hard grounder rocketed under Stott\u2019s glove at second base.<\/p>\n
The inning was over a pitch later when Luis Campusano grounded into a double play.<\/p>\n
The Padres had a runner at second with one out in the seventh and ninth innings and failed to score.<\/p>\n
The frustration of those failures was blunted by the fact they scored nine runs while winning the first two games over the Phillies, who lead the Padres by 2\u00bd\u00a0 games in the standings and entered the series with the major leagues\u2019 seventh-lowest ERA.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood game again,\u201d Bogaerts said. \u201cCame down to the wire, and obviously it would have been really nice to get the win, get a nice sweep. But they\u2019re a good team, and we showed that we\u2019re right up there with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: July 13, 2025 at 5:42 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On so many days and nights where their bats might as well have been toothpicks, the Padres have…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":63578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,1370,1266,3549,1306,7264,62,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-63577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-san-diego","14":"tag-san-diego-padres","15":"tag-sandiego","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114848842692459094","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}