ATLANTA \u2014 Michael King had that game he so often has, so angsty but in the end effective.<\/p>\n
The Padres offense had that game it too often does, so frustrating and ultimately deflating.<\/p>\n
Or it had enough of that game. It had that game until it was too late.<\/p>\n
The Padres\u2019 7-6 loss to the Braves was not the offensive battle the score suggested.<\/p>\n
After seven innings of doing virtually nothing, the Braves scored six runs in the bottom of the eighth against Wandy Peralta and Randy V\u00e1squez. After eight innings of doing virtually nothing, the Padres scored five runs against Victor Mederos and Raisel Iglesias.<\/p>\n
\u201cKind of the way baseball goes a little bit,\u201d Padres manager Craig Stammen said.<\/p>\n
He was not at all being flippant about the way the game ended. He was being honest about how the Padres\u2019 ninth inning was largely perpetrated against lower-leverage reliever in the game because of the large cushion the Braves had.<\/p>\n
The Padres and Braves were tied 1-1 when the eighth inning began. The only scoring being the Braves\u2019 run in the first inning on three walks and a groundout and Jackson Merrill\u2019s game-tying home run in the seventh inning.<\/p>\n
Peralta then allowed three hits and walked a batter after getting the first out of the eighth, and V\u00e1squez surrendered four hits that could easily have been outs.<\/p>\n
Then, after they went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position in the first eight innings Wednesday, the Padres scored three runs on a walk and three hits against Mederos and Luis Rengifo\u2019s two-run home run against Raisel Iglesias before Manny Machado and Ty France struck out to end the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cGames like that can only happen when you\u2019re quiet for the first part of it and then you kind of get awake at the end,\u201d Merrill said. \u201cI\u2019m proud of the boys for fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Taken in its entirety, Wednesday\u2019s game was among the most illustrative of what is wrong with the Padres that, after 102 games, perhaps can\u2019t be fixed by any addition(s) at the trade deadline.<\/p>\n
And this loss was a tangible step backward, as all five teams ahead of the Padres in the race for the final National League playoff spot won on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
After gaining ground despite losing three of their first five games on this 10-game road trip, the Padres on Wednesday fell to three games behind the Diamondbacks<\/p>\n
King was not sharp. He was in and out of trouble, like a magician who escapes handcuffs and a straightjacket.<\/p>\n
He walked the first three batters he faced, and the Braves took a 1-0 lead on Michael Harris II\u2019s groundout before King struck out the next two batters.<\/p>\n
The Braves would have at least one man on base in each of King\u2019s six innings, including runners at the corners with one out in the fourth, but they would not score off him again.<\/p>\n
King departed after throwing 95 pitches, having tied his season highs with seven hits allowed and four walks while striking out seven.<\/p>\n
After King departed, the Padres threatened to reward him by putting him in line for the win.<\/p>\n
Leading off the seventh, Merrill got the Padres even by sending an 0-2 fastball from Didier Fuentes a projected 449 feet, where it landed in a pond that feeds into a waterfall beyond center field.<\/p>\n
It was Merrill\u2019s fourth home run in four games and the longest of his career, and it was his second hit of the game and the Padres\u2019 second hit of the game.<\/p>\n
The Padres would get two more hits in the seventh \u2014 singles by Xander Bogaerts and Jake Cronenworth.<\/p>\n
But after pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets flied out to left field, a double steal opened first base and the Braves intentionally walked Fernando Tatis Jr. to bring up Rengifo, who popped out on the first pitch he saw from Fuentes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had P\u00e9rez a little bit on the ropes with the way he was not commanding the zone the way he wanted to, but he was able to make some good pitches,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t really able to get any hits off of him. We had people on base but were unable to come through in the big moment there with him. Then they\u2019ve got a really good bullpen, and we battled them. They kind of went down the line with their guys. Jackson had a big home run to tie it up, gave us a chance, and we just had one bad inning on the mound in the eighth that just didn\u2019t go our way. Wandy wasn\u2019t very sharp, and then a bunch of unlucky hits against Randy is what I\u2019ll say there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 Michael King had that game he so often has, so angsty but in the end effective.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127,1696],"class_list":["post-408951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}