SAN DIEGO -- The Padres rallied late to force extras, but came up short, running and bunting themselves out of innings in a 3-2 loss to the Pirates.
Here’s some instant reaction from Petco Park, where the Padres saw their three-game winning streak snapped in 12 innings:
Cronenworth’s big night
The Padres trailed by a run with the tying run 90 feet away when Jake Cronenworth came to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the eighth inning. He found himself in a 2-2 count against Pirates reliever Luke Weaver -- and he got to work.
He fouled off a changeup at the bottom of the zone, then a fastball at the top of the zone, then another changeup at the knees. Weaver’s eighth pitch was a cutter that caught a bit too much plate, and Cronenworth smacked it into center field, tying the game.
He wasn’t done. Cronenworth prevented the go-ahead run from scoring in the ninth with a diving stop at second. He essentially saved another run in the 11th with a brilliant glove flip. On the whole, the night was quintessential Jake Cronenworth.
Bunts (and baserunning) prove costly
The Padres had their chances. They stranded the automatic runner in the top of the 10th and 11th. But they opened the bottom half of both innings by popping up a bunt.
Bunting, of course, has largely gone out of style. But if there’s ever a place for it, it’s with the winning run on second base and nobody out. But both Dustin Harris and Cronenworth popped up their bunts.
In Harris’ case, Luis Campusano -- who had started the inning on second base -- was caught straying too far from the bag and was doubled off.
Lefties impress again
Adrian Morejon is perhaps the best left-handed setup weapon in baseball. He was brilliant again on Monday, working two scoreless extra innings -- with an auto runner on second base in both.
But there’s an ongoing battle in the San Diego bullpen among the other left-handers for the higher-leverage lefty lanes that don’t belong to Morejon. And lately, pretty much everyone has risen to the challenge.
Kyle Hart has been one of the Padres’ most important pitchers as they’ve reeled off a stretch in which they’ve gone 21-8. His versatility proved especially useful while they executed their pitching chaos strategy before the Trade Deadline. Hart has since risen to higher-leverage roles, and he met the challenge again with a scoreless inning on Monday.
Yuki Matsui, meanwhile, has a 2.13 ERA this season and pitched a scoreless frame for a second consecutive day. On Sunday, the Petco Park crowd took to chanting his name in the ninth inning. (Wandy Peralta did not pitch on Monday, but he’s been solid, too.)
The strength of this bullpen is clearly the elite weapons at the back end. Mason Miller celebrated his 28th birthday with a scoreless ninth, and Morejon kept the Pirates off the board in the 10th. But the Padres have won plenty of games this season because of their bullpen’s depth (even if Monday wasn’t one of them).