'It's just frustrating': Missed opportunities doom Padres in opener vs. Blue Jays

SAN DIEGO -- Xander Bogaerts homered, but the Padres dropped the opener of their weekend series against the Blue Jays, 5-3, on Friday night -- ensuring they can’t finish the first half above .500.

Here’s some instant reaction from Petco Park:

Another missed opportunity

The Padres play 18 more games before the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline. If they want to be contenders, their roster needs reinforcements. But -- here’s the conundrum -- if they want reinforcements, they need to start playing like contenders.

Right now, they’re playing like sellers.

San Diego has dropped 11 of 14. The last two have been especially painful. In both cases, they faced struggling starting pitchers -- Merrill Kelly on Thursday and Shane Bieber on Friday. In both cases their offense fell flat.

Friday was slightly different. (I hesitate to say “better,” because a loss is a loss, and in some ways these are harder to take.) The Padres pounded out 10 hits but scored only on Bogaerts’ two-run homer in the first, then with a two-out rally in the ninth.

“Just a lot of missed opportunities,” said manager Craig Stammen.

The Padres spent most of the first half either in the playoff picture or right on the fringe. But their recent slide has dropped them 5 1/2 games back in the NL Wild Card race. They had a chance to gain ground on Friday night.

And they didn’t.

“It’s just frustrating,” Bogaerts said.

Wear and tear showing in the bullpen

Jason Adam is on the IL with a shoulder strain. Jeremiah Estrada is out with right knee inflammation. It’s left knee inflammation for David Morgan.

The Padres are down a few key right-handers in their bullpen. And it’s showing.

Starter JP Sears was mostly solid on Friday night. He limited the damage to one run across the first four innings, before Myles Straw opened the fifth with a bunt single. (Really, a misplay by Sears.)

After Sears retired the No. 9 hitter Jonatan Clase, he’d earned the chance to face leadoff man Ernie Clement a third time. But when Clement hit a hard single to the right-center-field gap, Sears’ evening was finished. The next four Blue Jays were right-handed hitters. Stammen needed a righty.

Except, those guys are all on the IL. (And Bradgley Rodriguez has been bumped to a late leverage role as a result.) So Stammen went with ground-ball specialist Jhony Brito in an obvious double-play spot.

Brito got his ground ball -- a slow roller toward third that Vladimir Guerrero Jr. beat for an infield hit. Then, he threw a sinker that caught just a bit too much plate to Kazuma Okamoto, who launched the game’s decisive three-run homer.

Ouch. The Padres aren’t lying when they say their bullpen is deep. It is. But every bullpen has its limits. The Padres are at theirs right now.

A swing Bogaerts needed

It’s been a dreadful few months for Bogaerts. His April was solid. But May, June and the early part of July? Hasn’t been pretty. Entering play Friday night, Bogaerts was hitting just .198 with a .564 OPS since the start of May.

And yet, four days ago, Stammen moved Bogaerts up to the No. 3 spot in the lineup. His thinking?

“He’s had a tough stretch here, the last couple months,” Stammen said. “Trying to give him a little confidence boost, a place in the lineup he’s hit a lot of times in his career -- and done very well there. Just trying to mix it up and see if we can get one of … our best players, get him going.”

This is probably what Stammen had in mind. Bogaerts got himself into a favorable count in his first-inning at-bat, then pulverized a 2-0 fastball from Bieber for his ninth home run of the season. The Padres grabbed an early 2-0 lead.

Look, lineup construction is mostly overrated. It’s not that it doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter as much as we make it out to. Still, putting one of your worst hitters -- at least at the moment -- in one of the lineup’s most important spots is a major risk.

But if the Padres can get Bogaerts swinging like he did in April, Stammen’s gambit will have been well worth it.

Then again, here’s the downside: In the ninth inning, with the tying runs aboard, it was Bogaerts who came to the plate. Manny Machado, who’s been heating up lately, was on deck as Bogaerts grounded out to end the game.

“Started off great,” Bogaerts said of his night. “And it ended probably not the way you envisioned the day. It sucks. Come back tomorrow with a positive attitude, continue working, try to help the team win a game.”