The San Diego Padres are now six games behind the Dodgers after their latest loss to the Phillies.
The San Diego Padres now have a losing formula in place, and it’s costing them in their battle to keep pace with the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West standings.
The Padres are six games back, and they continue to give the Arizona Diamondbacks opportunities to pass them and move into second place, with yesterday’s 3-2 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies being the latest example. Arizona remains a half-game behind San Diego, but that won’t continue if their current losing streak of three games does.
Gavin Sheets continues to be the Padres best offensive player, and it’s not close. Sheets came through once again with a two-run homer to give the Padres an early 2-0 lead, but it wasn’t enough as the San Diego offense went dormant after that.
“It’s important to get back on it tomorrow and give ourselves a chance to win a series,” Sheets said after the game in a piece written by AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. “It’s time for us to come tomorrow and show up. This is how you go a long way -- you beat pitchers like [tonight’s starter Cristopher Sánchez].”
If you’re looking for bright spots, you could also point to Fernando Tatis Jr., who hit his first home run of the season on Sunday. But this is a different version of Tatis that the Padres are getting, as he’s turned into a hitting machine with an average of .464 over his last seven games, according to Cassavell.
Last night, however, Tatis made a costly base running error. He singled in the eighth, then overran second base on a grounder to third by Miguel Andujar, and Tatis would up running into a bad out as third baseman Alek Bohm threw behind him and Tatis was quickly tagged out after a brief rundown.
“I’m just trying to be aggressive,” Tatis said. “Thought it was going to be a close play at first. Just trying to make a turn over there and make something happen. Obviously they saw me.”
Tatis’ aggressiveness was a product of desperation. The Padres don’t get many scoring opportunities in games like this, so it’s important for them to capitalize. In this case his aggressiveness backfired, and manager Craig Stammen knows it’s a delicate balancing act.
“We’ve seen him do things like that and get away with it so many times that you don’t want to take that out of him,” Stammen said. “You don’t want to take that aggressiveness out of him.”
