Padres on wrong end of May's best start, Cardinals' defensive gems

ST. LOUIS -- The Padres did not make history at Busch Stadium on Monday night, but that is relatively small comfort in the face of struggling to get any traction offensively at all against a frequent foe. Dustin May carried a perfect game into the seventh inning that was broken up by a Fernando Tatis Jr. walk, but that and a bounding single through the infield by Manny Machado represented the sum total of San Diego’s offensive output. They fell, 3-0, in the opening game of a three-game set at Busch Stadium.

“Dustin had everything going today,” said Padres bench coach Randy Knorr, who served as acting manager while Craig Stammen served a one-game suspension after Saturday’s dust-up in Baltimore. “Threw ‘em all for strikes, put the ball in play when he needed to, and he was just tough to hit.”

“I thought he mixed everything,” said left fielder Gavin Sheets, who was one of eight Padres to put up an 0-fer on the evening. “You couldn’t really sit on one pitch because he was throwing all of them at the same time, throwing them for strikes and even broke out the changeup in my last at-bat, which I hadn’t seen all night.”

Wandy Peralta spun a perfect first inning as an opener ahead of Lucas Giolito, who surrendered three runs in his five innings of work. The two runs he allowed in the fourth came after retiring the first two batters of the inning.

He struck out two and walked three across those five innings, navigating through trouble as he worked to try to keep pace with May’s efforts on the other side of the field.

“It’s kind of more of the same from my last few outings,” assessed Giolito, who noted that his routine was largely undisturbed despite pitching behind a true opener for the first time in his career. “I’ll feel good and in control, especially today, commanding the fastball early, and then it’s like I throw a couple misfires and it throws me out of whack. I start spraying, lose the release point bad, and I did an OK enough job of trying to limit as much as I could despite that happening.”

Sheets came out on the short end of a couple outstanding defensive plays by the Cardinals, representative of the night’s offensive frustrations. Lars Nootbaar made a sliding catch on a sinking line drive hit by Sheets in the fifth inning to keep May’s hopes for history alive, and Masyn Winn hustled to the bag for a forceout and released an 83 mph throw to nab Sheets on the back end and diffuse the only San Diego rally of the night in the seventh.

“It was a great play by Lars,” Sheets acknowledged. “In my last at-bat, it’s frustrating. It’s a chance to get something going for the guys, and at least get a run in and kind of maybe get a chance to break it up a little bit with the momentum on our side.”

Indeed, it was luck turning against the Padres that swung the only necessary offensive momentum of the night in the direction of the Cardinals. With two out and a runner on first in the fourth inning, Winn hit a sharp comebacker to Giolito that was likely to end the inning had it not busted through the webbing of his glove after Winn worked Giolito into a full count. Instead the ball went as an infield single, and Jimmy Crooks delivered an eventual game-winning, two-run double to the gap.

“It’s pretty unfortunate, but at the same time, what did I do with the next guy, right? I gave up a bases-clearing double. If I’d executed better, I could’ve been out of the inning,” Giolito admitted.

The question of execution, both at the plate and on the mound, is one that vexed the Padres throughout the game. In what was no question the best start of May’s career -- turned in against the team he has faced more than any other -- there is always a temptation to offer the proverbial doff of the cap, admitting that there’s only so much an offense can do when faced with a pitcher at the top of his game.

“Just a good night for him, tough on our guys tonight, and I’m confident we’ll bounce back,” said Knorr, echoing that thought for many in the Padres’ clubhouse.

Many, but not all. Sheets, who had at least two chances to start to turn the game in San Diego’s favor, was slightly more recalcitrant.

“I don’t ever like tipping the cap to a guy,” he said. “I think he threw the ball well. I think we had our opportunities, especially my at-bat [in the seventh]. That’s a chance you can really change the game, maybe get in the bullpen.”

Not tonight, no matter where his cap rests.