The night began strangely. It turned ugly.
The Padres returned home Sunday night having won a game after eight straight losses, talking about how they saw positives and were looking to create momentum.
There were no signs of either on Monday, as they put up almost no resistance in a shockingly easy 8-0 victory by the Diamondbacks.
Virtually the entire night was the opposite of what the Padres envisioned as they began the final week before the All-Star break.
“I think we’ve got to play our best baseball and take care of our game,” Manny Machado said Monday afternoon. “If we do that, we could put ourselves in a good spot. So keep doing that. Not really worry about who we’re playing, but go out there and try to play the best baseball tonight and leave it on the field and do that for the next seven games.”
From the misplayed triple and hit batter that began the game through the three-run homer that essentially put it away, through the Padres’ string of uncompetitive at-bats and considering all that is at stake for them at this point, what happened Monday was instead practically unconscionable.
Both teams began the game with a 44-45 record and four games back in the wild-card standings, the last of the contenders.
At least one of them will in the coming weeks likely be exposed as a pretender.
Anyone who saw a moment of Monday’s game would put their money on it being the Padres who disappear from relevance in short order.
The Padres’ starting pitching woes continued, as Walker Buehler allowed seven runs in five innings one start after yielding nine runs in four innings.
He worked five innings Monday only because it made no sense for him not to stay in the game and wear as much of the beatdown as possible. Down 6-0 by the third inning, it would not have been prudent for Craig Stammen to manage for the win.
The Padres offense performed like it agreed.
Their eight singles came in eight different innings. They got one runner into scoring position.
They hardly made Brandon Pfaadt, who entered the game with a 5.40 ERA and had been shuffled in and out of the Diamondbacks’ rotation, sweat in his five innings. Ryan Thompson worked the next two innings, and Drey Jameson the eighth and ninth.
Pfaadt was working with a cushion from the start.
Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill made a bad read on Ketel Marte’s line drive on the game’s third pitch, going straight back while the ball spun to the left behind him and Marte ran to third. Buehler’s next pitch hit Geraldo Perdomo in the foot.
With Corbin Carroll at the plate, Perdomo took off for second base while Buehler was on the mound. Buehler turned late and fired a throw ostensibly toward second base that sailed into center field and allowed Marte to trot home.
Buehler got two outs before Max Kepler grounded a single through the left side to score Perdomo.
The Diamondbacks scored four runs in the third inning on a double, two singles and Kepler’s home run, all in succession with one out.
Perdomo homered with two outs in the fourth.
Buehler made it through the fifth before Alek Jacob took over in the sixth and surrendered a home run to Nolan Arenado, the first batter he faced.
Jacob made it through the eighth before Ron Marinaccio worked the ninth.