Padres run themselves out of potential rally

DENVER -- It was the type of game the Padres should have won -- and for the first 2 1/2 months of the season, it was the type of game the Padres did win.

They outhit the Rockies on Tuesday night, and had men on the basepaths all night. But the clean baseball that defined this Padres team as they ascended to the top of the National League West in mid-June -- that’s deserted them lately. It was never more evident than in the eighth inning of a 5-3 loss at Coors Field.

• Padres seek spark with speedy callup Ruiz

Twice, Padres baserunners ran into needless outs at third base, even as the team’s offense had the Rockies relief corps on the ropes. Afterward, manager Bob Melvin said the onus was on him to get things back on course.

“You can’t just run into outs at this ballpark, especially as we were fighting to come back,” Melvin said. “We were putting together really good at-bats. Unfortunately, it happened. Responsibility is on me. We can’t play that sloppy, and we did tonight. It cost us the game.”

They weren’t Melvin’s baserunning errors, of course. With the Padres trailing by four runs, Melvin didn’t tell Luke Voit to tag from second base on a fly ball to left field that didn’t reach the warning track. Nor did Melvin tell newly promoted prospect Esteury Ruiz to break for third base with two outs and the tying run at the plate.

“We're in the stretch that we're in right now, partly because of [sloppiness],” Melvin said. “Our overall play is ultimately my responsibility.”

That much, at least, can’t be disputed. The Padres have struggled lately, dropping 12 of their last 18 to fall 7 1/2 games behind the Dodgers in the National League West.

There’s a long list of reasons for the team’s recent funk. Manny Machado hasn’t looked himself since he sustained an ankle sprain here in Denver last month. Jurickson Profar, the team’s spark atop the order, is currently on the seven-day concussion IL. Fernando Tatis Jr. still hasn’t played a game.

As a result, the Padres offense has struggled. But it struggled often enough in April and May, too. That’s when their crisp defense and savvy baserunning came into play. They won close games by winning on the margins.

“We've got to win games,” Machado said. “[When] we lose those games, those are tough ones.”

Machado, who finished the night 0-for-5, chalked up the Padres’ recent sloppy play to the ups and downs of a long baseball season. Told that his manager had taken responsibility, Machado indicated there was plenty to go around.

“It's an overall thing,” Machado said. “We're all playing sloppy baseball right now. We've just got to get better.”

It wasn’t limited to the eighth inning on Tuesday either. Half an inning prior, Trent Grisham dropped a deep fly ball at the warning track in right-center. It marked the second consecutive night that Grisham, a Gold Glover in 2020, misplayed a fly ball into three bases for a Rockies hitter.

Lately, Grisham hasn’t quite been his usual reliable presence in center field. But he did make an outstanding leaping catch in left-center field in the eighth inning, as he collided with the wall.

“Those are the kind of plays that I make,” Grisham said. “And I think that I need to make the routine plays that I haven’t made.”

The Padres relief corps worked around Grisham’s seventh-inning blunder. Right-hander Nick Martinez exited with what Melvin called a minor right ankle sprain after he attempted to avoid a line drive. But Reiss Knehr escaped the threat by inducing a double-play grounder, keeping the score at 5-1.

Voit and Jorge Alfaro reached base to start the eighth, as the Padres threatened. But Austin Nola’s flyout prompted the first baserunning blunder. Voit was out by several steps.

After Nomar Mazara and Ruiz had tacked on RBI singles to cut the deficit to two, Ruiz took off for third base. The 23-year-old speedster led the Minors in steals before his callup on Tuesday, and the Padres promoted him largely because of his elite wheels. Just not in that situation.

“I thought I would be able to get to third base,” Ruiz said through a team interpreter. “But it wasn’t a good decision from my end. We get to learn from our mistakes.”

Said Melvin: “Just some overexuberance. But the scoreboard will tell you what to do in games like that. Unfortunately it happened. And it happened at the wrong time.”