PHILADELPHIA — The Padres and Phillies entrusted a tie game to their bullpen after five innings on Tuesday night.
The Padres would gladly take their chances in such a game. If they could only hit.
It is true that Jeremiah Estrada immediately yielded the run that decided a 3-2 Phillies victory.
But it is the repetition of the other part of the Padres’ losing equation that is troubling.
Their seventh loss in eight games saw the Padres go 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position. They are 5-for-49 with runners in scoring position in those eight games.
So Estrada allowing a run on a walk, a single and a double-play grounder was enough to doom a team that no longer specializes in the comeback.
The Padres have come from behind to win twice in the past 10 games they have trailed, both from one run down. They had come back to win 13 of the first 30 games in which they trailed.
It more often than not takes hits to score.
In their first game in June, after batting .200 in May, the Padres got seven hits on Tuesday, three of those from Fernando Tatis Jr.
It was after the second of Tatis’ hits, with two outs in the third inning, that Gavin Sheets put the Padres up 2-0 by hitting his 10th home run of the season.
The Phillies tied the game an inning later, when Bryce Harper followed Trea Turner’s leadoff single with his 14th homer of the season.
None of the Padres’ hits came after having a runner on second or third base with less than two outs in three different innings.
Tatis began the game by driving a curveball to the gap in left-center field for a stand-up double. Sheets and Machado followed by hitting pop-ups caught by infielders, and Miguel Andujar ended the inning with a groundout.
Andujar reached on an infield single to start the fourth inning and stole second base on the final pitch of Jackson Merrill’s strikeout. Andujar was left on second after strikeouts by Xander Bogaerts and Jase Bowen.
And in the seventh, a walk by Bogaerts and Bowen’s first major league hit put runners at the corners with one out before Sung-Mun Song struck out looking and pinch-hitter Ty France ended the inning with a grounder to shortstop.
It appeared the Padres would get another try to drive in a runner with a hit in the eighth.
Tatis led off the inning with a single before two quick out by Sheets and Machado. Andujar followed with his second infield single chopped to the left side, and Tatis rounded second far enough he could not get back in time to beat the throw from third baseman Alec Bohm.
Both managers turned to their bullpens after five innings.
The Padres had pushed Aaron Nola to 95 pitches. Randy Vásquez had thrown just 80 pitches.