Not much went right for the San Diego Padres last night, and they're now down 2-0 to St. Louis in the four-game series.
The San Diego Padres suffered one of the worst losses of the young season so far as they mustered just one hit in their 6-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, with right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. making a key four-run error that opened the floodgates for the Cardinals.
This was an ugly night for the Padres in which not much went right. St Louis starter Michael McGreevy dazzled the Pads from the get-go, striking out nine and giving up just a lone single to Jackson Merrill in the fourth inning.
The Padres weren’t going win with that kind of offensive output, but starter Griffin Canning held up his end by throwing four shutout innings of his own. But Canning was betrayed by his defense in the fifth after a pair hits and a walk loaded the bases, and the culprit was none other than Tatis.
Tatis failed to field what should have been a single by JJ Wetherholt, and when the ball scooted under his glove four runs scored as the Cardinals took a 4-0 lead on the Little League home run. Reliever Yuki Matsui couldn’t stop the bleeding, and after another hit and a sacrifice fly the Padres found themselves down 6-0.
Tatis has been wearing the goat horns a lot lately for San Diego, and he picked the worst time to pick up his first error of the season. He also went 0-for-2 with a walk as his average dropped under .250, and Tatis has turned into a problem instead of a leader. The Padres have now lost two games due to defensive mistakes that can easily be connected to the "Tatis at second" experiment, so it's fair to wonder if that should be discontinued completely.
It was a tough loss for Canning, too, as he’s not built up to the point where he can throw five innings or more on a regular basis yet. It’s also not clear if he’s a rotation answer yet, either, as the New York Mets got a strong run from him early last year before he faltered and then got hurt.
The Padres have now lost back-to-back games to the Cardinals after taking two of three from the San Francisco Giants, and it’s been a while since they’ve played well consistently. No one knows where the offense is going to come from these days, and they need to bounce back in the final two games of this four-game set.
San Diego will send Randy Vasquez to the mound to try to stop the bleeding tonight, with the Cardinals countering with Dustin May.