The Marlins gave away leads their first two days in San Diego.
Guess a good host returns the favor every now and then.
Kyle Hart could not get out of the fifth inning, David Morgan could not strand the runners he inherited and the back of a taxed bullpen could not hold onto the late lead provided by another Gavin Sheets home run in the Padres’ 10-8 loss on Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park, snapping the team’s three-game winning streak.
“Obviously, it’s one that we wanted,” Sheets said. “We played hard today. Winning the series is very important, obviously, but … today was in our focus and kind of like that one get away from us.”
The series began with the Padres coming from behind and winning in 11 innings on Monday and capitalizing on three errors in erasing Miami’s six-run first in Tuesday’s win.
A day later, the Marlins scored five runs off two rookies in the fifth inning, went ahead once on a wild pitch from Jason Adam and had an error from Manny Machado factor in a three-run eighth that gave Miami the lead for good.
“They’ve come in and done a tremendous job and kept us in games,” Machado said. “They gave us an opportunity to go out there and come back like we did the other today and today we just couldn’t.”
At least not again.
Having already thrown a wild pitch to an inherited runner from Yuki Matsui to score in the seventh, Adam hit Connor Norby in the head with a change-up a half-inning after Sheets’ 11th home run had given the Padres an 8-7 lead.
A double-play ball might have gotten him out of trouble, but Machado botched a bouncer from Nick Fortes for his MLB-leading 10th error of the season. The Marlins then rallied for three runs after left-hander Wandy Peralta replaced Adam.
Only after Peralta nearly escaped that jam, too.
But second baseman Jake Cronenworth couldn’t quite turn a double play on Jesús Sanchez’s grounder to shortstop Xander Bogaerts. Peralta got a fly ball to right that was not deep enough to score a runner from third only to walk the next batter. He then gave up a two-run single to Agustín Ramirez and a run-scoring double to Eric Wagaman, all with closer Robert Suarez still in the bullpen.
This was by design: Suarez had pitched four of the previous five games for a bullpen that had been used heavily since having to cover Michael King’s start on Saturday in Atlanta.
“I mean, we didn’t want to go Suarez (for) more than one out (for) five out of seven,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We justified it before the game with Adam. … We had to use Morgan kind of early. Everybody else is down except for (Sean) Reynolds, who threw 57 on (Tuesday).”
The Padres’ final six hitters went down in order, allowing a series sweep to slip through their fingers when they looked poised to cruise to a win after Cronenworth’s two-run double keyed a five-run fourth inning.
Hart had already given up a solo homer to Ramirez in the third inning when he climbed the mound in the fifth inning. Then the left-handed-hitting Sanchez took him deep to right with one out.
Fine.
Even with that blast pushing Hart into the team lead with eight homers allowed despite spending a month in the minors, it only cut the Padres’ lead to 6-2. But what really unraveled a solid start in his return to the majors was the double to Javier Sanoja and a pair of two-out singles, including one from Ramirez to make it a three-run ballgame.
Hart was an out away from qualifying for the win, but in a lineup loaded with right-handed hitters to face Hart, Shildt had seen enough.
Except the call to Morgan backfired.
Making his second big-league appearance, Morgan grooved a middle-in, 97 mph fastball to the right-handed-hitting Otto Lopez and the Marlins second baseman pulled it out to left, just a few rows beyond the wall to tie the game at 6-6.
Lopez’s home run closed the book on Hart, whose ERA swelled to 6.66 after Morgan allowed two inherited runs to score. Hart did not walk a batter, but he struck out just one and allowed five runs on six hits in 4⅔ innings in his first start in the majors in more than a month.
“Tough way to finish what was good series,” said Hart, who was recalled to push Nick Pivetta’s start back a game as the Padres prepare for 13 straight games after Thursday’s off day. “You win a series, that’s a good series. But I’ll take that one. That one’s on me. Can’t protect a five-run lead. All I had to do in the fifth there was just limit the damage. Wasn’t able to do it. Needed to throw some better pitches.
“I don’t think the pitches were bad, but they weren’t good enough. So just frustrating. Sweeper wasn’t there. Need to kind of solve that the next few days.”
