SAN DIEGO -- In 178 Minor League innings spread across 37 Minor League games, Chris Paddack didn’t do much struggling.

His numbers don’t even seem real. Paddack struck out 230 and walked only 20. He posted a sub-2 ERA and surrendered just seven home runs. In parts of three seasons, he was as close to unhittable as a young pitcher could possibly be.

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Then -- with all of seven Double-A starts under his belt -- Paddack jumped straight to the big leagues this year. In the past month, the sailing hasn’t been so smooth.

The fiery Padres right-hander was knocked around for six runs (five earned) on eight hits in a 9-6 loss to the Phillies on Tuesday night at Petco Park. It came on the heels of his poor showing at Yankee Stadium last week. Three weeks ago, he was roughed up in Los Angeles.

“This,” Paddack said, “is my first challenge.”

Until last month, Paddack had allowed four runs just three times in his professional career. He’s now done so three times in four outings.

“It's frustrating,” he said. “I can't tell you how mad I am deep down inside. You just feel like you let the team down with outings like that.”

None of these struggles detract from Paddack’s long-term value. He’s 23, and he owns a 2.97 ERA after 11 starts in the big leagues. Paddack is not the first rookie pitcher to run into a rough patch, and he won’t be the last.

Pulling from his time as a player, Padres manager Andy Green recalled the early growing pains from Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw a decade ago. Clearly, if Green is using names like those, the Padres still envision Paddack at the front of their rotation.

“There's not a pitcher in this game who goes through an entire baseball season and doesn't struggle to some degree,” Green said. “It's a tough league. Chris has what it takes to be very successful here. We believe that firmly.

“We also believed from the very beginning of the year: There's going to be rough patches. There's going to be a learning curve. There's going to be growth. Now that we're in the middle of it, if anybody's shocked by it, they shouldn't have been.”

OK, so Paddack still seems poised for long-term success. But what about the short term? What’s plaguing Paddack at the moment. Well, his struggles seem to be three-fold:

1. His offspeed mix suddenly isn’t working: Paddack’s elite changeup hasn’t been elite lately.

“That changeup, man, the past two outings, I've been leaving it up,” Paddack said. “That's very rare for me. That's usually a pitch that I can control to whatever coordinate of the plate I want to.”

Paddack needs to find a way to harness the pinpoint version of himself. He also might need to throw his curveball a bit more. It’s still his third weapon, but it’s been much better lately. Said Green: “The curveball's good. The curveball plays. We need to use it.”

2. His fastball needs to beat hitters: On Tuesday night, Paddack’s fastball velocity dipped during the fourth and fifth innings. Scott Kingery took him deep on a flat 91.8 mph heater in the fourth.

Paddack didn’t reach 94 once over his last two frames -- even though he’s averaged 93.8 this season. That dip was likely the product of some laborious innings, which he isn’t used to. Paddack needed 91 pitches to get through 4 1/3, and after his removal Brad Wieck coughed up a grand slam to Jay Bruce, putting the game out of reach.

3. He needs to be “The Sheriff” again: Most of Paddack’s postgame comments were geared toward finding the locked-in version of himself that took the league by storm over his first seven starts.

“Multiple guys have told me, ‘Get back to that Chris Paddack,’” he said. “When I'm that guy, I tell myself I'm the best in the world. I've gotten away from that a little bit.”

Clearly, Paddack isn’t accustomed to struggling. Perhaps, more than anything, Paddack needs to learn how to handle those struggles. In the big leagues, they’re something of an inevitability.

In that regard, the Phillies may have given Paddack a hard lesson on Tuesday night. But in the long run, it could prove to be a valuable one.

“This week coming up, there's going to be a new Chris Paddack,” he said. “I've got to find that.”