PHOENIX -- Arizona continues to play on the periphery of the National League Wild Card race, but a misstep against one of the worst teams in the American League continued an unsightly trend on Tuesday night.

A 7-2 loss to the Baltimore Orioles may not be enough to turn the D-backs into a seller at the July 31 Trade Deadline, but it did cost them another game to Wild Card leaders Washington and St. Louis.

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The D-backs are three games out of the second Wild Card spot, as far back as they have been this month, and fell to 51-51. General manager Mike Hazen said Monday that it is hard to envision a .500 team making a long postseason run.

“It sucks, for sure,” Arizona starter Merrill Kelly said of the loss. “I think the whole Wild Card thing has gotten magnified maybe a little bit. We’ve had some series against some teams that are definitely in the hunt just like we are, but there is still a ton of baseball to be played. If we go on a run and they go on a bad streak, we’re sitting in a different position a week from now.

“So as much as it sucks, you hear me talking about giving my team a chance to win. I think the most frustrating aspect about tonight is that I didn’t do that. From here on out, every win is big, but I don’t think it is of the magnitude that maybe someone from the outside of this clubhouse might see it as.”

Kelly (7-10) gave up three homers and seven runs in 2 1/3 innings, only the second time this season he has given up more than one homer in a game and the first time in the last 10 starts he has not gone at least five innings.

Baltimore's Renato Nunez and Anthony Santander homered off Kelly in the second inning before Kelly broke an 0-for-33 streak with a two-run single in the bottom of the inning. Dwight Smith Jr.’s three-run homer capped the Orioles' four-run third inning for the final runs of the game.

“Unfortunately, he made some mistakes over the middle of the plate to the wrong guys at the wrong time and they capitalized,” manager Torey Lovullo said of Kelly. “When you throw mistakes, you pay for it.”

The D-backs had three singles over the final seven innings, and all three runners were erased on double plays.

“Was it a bad loss? Yes,” Lovullo said. “I think after the seven runs were scored, we got a little flat-lined. It’s a game of rebounding. A game of dealing with the failures. It’s a game of pressing on. We have to do that.”

The D-backs, who lost three of four to Wild Card contender Milwaukee over the weekend, have given up at least seven runs in four of their last five games. They have split their last 18 games at a time when most of the other Wild Card contenders have begun to roll.

The Cardinals have won nine of their last 11, a run that started when they took the final two games of a three-series series against Arizona on July 13-14. Washington has won 16 of its last 22.

San Francisco has become an unexpected player in the Wild Card race by winning 17 of its last 20 games after beating the Cubs 5-4 in 13 innings on Tuesday. The Giants moved a game ahead of the D-backs in the Wild Card standings.

The D-backs finish a three-game series against Baltimore before playing four in Miami and two in Yankee Stadium before the Trade Deadline.

“My vision is crystal clear -- that we are here, we are performing our job, we are not getting distracted by anything that is creating extra noise,” Lovullo said of the Wild Card scramble. “It’s a hard game, and if you start to pay attention to the extra black cloud that is built around this time of year, it can bog you down.”