The Padres came out swinging on Sunday.
It didn’t last long.
They were stymied again by some more good Mariners pitching, things got a little weird for their own really good starting pitcher, and they ended up getting swept without making their opponent sweat hardly at all.
The Mariners won the finale of a three-game series at Petco Park 6-1 and outscored the Padres by a combined score of 15-3 over the three games at Petco Park.
“They were better,” Fernando Tatis Jr. said. “Just that simple.”
The Padres, who have lost three straight games for just the second time this season, scored once in each game of the series.
“Two good teams just went at each other,” manager Mike Shildt said. “They threw the ball exceptionally well.”
The Mariners (26-19) lead the American League West. The Padres (27-18) are a game behind the Dodgers in the National League West.
Tatis provided all of their tangible offense with a lead-off home run Sunday. They got six more hits, walked a couple times and had six runners get past first base the rest of the way.
None of those runners got home, as the the Padres finished the series 0-for-21 with runners in scoring position. It was the first time since 2013 that they had at least 20 at-bats with runners in scoring position and did not get a single hit.
“They had good pitches all series,” Tatis said. “They made good pitches in the right moment. Just baseball.”
Tatis, who last September broke up Mariners starter Bryan Woo’s perfect game with a one-out home run in the seventh inning, homered against Woo on the third pitch the right-hander threw Sunday.
It was the second straight day a solo homer put the Padres ahead. And for a good portion of Sunday’s game, it was not inconceivable a 1-0 lead might even be enough.
Padres starter Michael King was mostly dazzling for 12 batters and has on several occasions continued that kind of excellence deep into games.
But after he surrendered his first hit, a home run by Randy Arozarena with two outs in the fourth inning, things dissolved quickly.
Arozarena’s blast was the Mariners’ sixth home run of the series, and at that point they had scored eight of their 10 runs over the three days via homers.
Two runs would follow in the fourth on a pair of hard-hit doubles and a pair of infield singles. One of the doubles and one of the singles could have been outs had they been played differently.
On the pitch after Arozarena’s homer, Rowdy Tellez lined a ball that turned around left fielder Gavin Sheets, who was starting in that spot for just the second time this season and 10th time in his career.
Sheets turned and ran and was making as if to try to rob a home when Tellez’s ball hit off the wall two feet to Sheets’ right as he ran face-first into the padding.
Mitch Garver followed with a chopped single that died in the grass a third of the way up the third base line before Leody Taveras lined the first pitch he saw to right field, where it hopped over the wall, scoring Tellez but forcing Garver to stop at third base.
Then came a play that had King bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees for several seconds afterward, knowing his effort had led to a run.
On what would have easily been an inning-ending groundout fielded by shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who had moved into position on the right field side of second base, King reached out to grab Miles Mastrobuoni’s soft line drive and had the ball go off his glove. The redirection made any play at first base impossible and brought in another run.
“It’s reaction,” King said. “When it’s coming back at me, I’m gonna go after it, regardless of where the (defender) is.”
King (4-2, 2.59) took 32 pitches to get through the fourth inning, then just 11 to complete the fifth before paying for another play that was almost made in the sixth.
Arozarena skied a ball down the right field line that Tatis ran 92 feet to chase down, only to have it bounce in and out of his glove as he tried to make a basket catch. It was initially ruled a double but later changed to an error on Tatis and very well might be changed back on appeal.
“Tough play,” Tatis said. “Just my speed got me there, but I had to run a lot.”
Tellez’s fly ball to center moved Arozarena to third, and Garver drove him in with a single grounded past the bag at third base.
That ended King’s day.
Woo, who had yielded a single to Luis Arraez immediately following Tatis’ home run, pretty much cruised the rest of the way. He finished seven innings in 87 pitches. It was the ninth time in nine starts Woo (5-1, 2.65) has completed at least six innings.
“He was executing,” Tatis said. “His fastball is alive. He’s a really good pitcher, and he just dominated today.”
It wasn’t just Woo who rendered the Padres mostly impotent.
Jose Iglesias and Elias Díaz, the bottom two batters in the Padres’ order, began the eighth inning with singles off reliever Carlos Vargas before Tatis grounded into a double play and Arraez flied out to center field.
After the Mariners added two runs off Yuki Matsui in the top of the ninth, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill began the bottom of the inning with walks against Eduard Bazardo. Two fly ball outs and a pop-up ended the game.
“Didn’t cash in opportunities this series,” Merrill said. “I felt like we got to the spots we needed to be in, and we just didn’t capitalize. … Everybody in that pen is dirty. It’s our job to get shorter and complete the goal of getting runs across the board. But we didn’t do that, and that’s baseball, and stuff happens sometimes.”
