Yu Darvish, Padres blitzed by Pirates to start critical homestand
The Giants’ losing streak hit six games on Monday. The Reds and Phillies ended similar skids last week. The Marlins lost as many as eight in a row and the Diamondbacks have been swept in three of their previous five series.
It’s the definition of the help the Padres need to make a move in the NL wild-card race.
If only they could help themselves.
Ha-Seong Kim homered twice but Yu Darvish gave up twice as many longballs and the Padres’ head-scratching struggles against the fast-sinking Pirates continued in an 8-4 loss in front of a sellout crowd of 43,419 to begin the final homestand before next week’s trade deadline.
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A fourth loss to the Pirates — winners of just 10 of their last 36 games — only complicates the calculus as A.J. Preller charts a path forward for his underachieving $247 million team.
“I’ve long, long, long left the seat behind of putting on that GM hat,” Manny Machado said Monday afternoon. “ … We can’t really control who gets traded or who doesn’t or if we do trade or if we bring in players. That’s the front office’s job to handle.”
Except they could have made it a much easier decision much, much sooner.
But they lost more games than they won in May and June, dropped three out of four in Philadelphia coming out of the All-Star break, failed to complete sweeps in Toronto and Detroit and can’t beat the Pirates.
Ha-Seong Kim is thrown out on a grounder during Monday’s loss. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
For whatever reason, the Padres have been the exception during Pittsburgh’s tumble to the NL Central cellar as the Pirates penned a sweep at PNC Park in late June and outhit them 13-6 in Monday’s opener.
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“That explains the sport of baseball, compared to other sports,” Kim said through interpreter Leo Bae. “Any time the No. 1 team can lose to the last-place team. It is what it is. They played better tonight and they were more focused. We have to move on and think about tomorrow’s game.”
Kim certainly did what he could.
He led off Monday’s game with a home run and added a two-run shot in the fifth, his first multi-homer game in the majors pushing his career-best homer total to 14.
Problem is, Darvish gave up four blasts in between as the Pirates built an 8-1 lead.
Jack Suwinski, one of the kids dealt away in 2021’s Adam Frazier deal, hit a solo shot in the third and Carlos Santana added a two-run shot before the end of the inning.
Then Liover Puegero, sitting on an .076 batting, hit a two-run shot for his first home run in the fourth, and Santana added a two-run shot in the fifth before Darvish was lifted with seven runs allowed in 4 1/3 innings.
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The Pirates extended their lead to 8-1 as Tim Hill allowed three more hits before getting out of the fifth.
Ha-Seong Kim rounds the bases after he hit a home run in the fifth inning. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“(Kim) leads the game off with a home run,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “That should give us some energy. It did. Felt good in our ballpark, got our fans into it. Again, we just gave up too many runs in the middle innings.”
Kim’s second home run, on the heels of Trent Grisham’s one-out double, shaved the Pirates’ lead to 8-3 in the fifth and accounted for two of the four hits allowed by right-hander Quinn Priester in his second big-league start.
A fourth run was charged to the Pirates rookie when Luis Campusano doubled off Ryan Borucki after Priester was lifted after 5 1/3 innings.
Or one more inning than Darvish lasted.
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Instead of taking a step forward, the Padres fell back to five games under .500 with six games left to convince Preller to keep the band together — pending free agents Blake Snell and Josh Hader, in particular — or add to a product that has disappointed to date.
Fernando Tatis Jr. looks on before Monday’s against the Pirates at Petco Park. (K.C. Alfred/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
“We know what kind of team we are,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said Monday afternoon. “That fight is just A.J.’s. I mean, that’s the G.M.’s work. For us, it’s just go out there with the team we have, (everybody) in this clubhouse, go out there and win. That’s it.”
Added Melvin: “Every series is big. Every game that we play leading up (to the deadline) … for us it’s going to be important, but as a team I don’t think we’re looking at that too much. That’s more front office and how they evaluate things going forward. … I’m always in the camp that we have enough here to go where we want to go.”
Source: The San Diego Union-Tribune
