SAN FRANCISCO — A little more than two months in, the Padres are just beginning to play the teams that matter in the National League West.
And if this is what it is going to be like, what a tense summer it will be.
The Padres’ first series in a stretch of games that will see them play the Dodgers seven times and Diamondbacks three times over the next 14 days seemed like it might be a metaphor for how this division race is shaping up.
They walked away from a gorgeous afternoon at Oracle Park having lost 3-2 to the Giants.
“It’s a division game, you know,” Manny Machado said. “So it’s a tight game. … It was a good series for sure.”
The teams split a four-game set in which every game was decided by a run and the only game that did not involve a comeback was Monday, when the Padres’ scored the only run in the 10th.
All of Thursday’s scoring came in the third inning.
Machado’s 350th career home run gave the Padres a 2-0 lead in the top half, and the Giants scored three times against Dylan Cease in the bottom half.
After the Giants came back from five runs down to win 6-5 on Wednesday night, Padres designated hitter Gavin Sheets said, “That’s what happens when it’s division baseball. It’s what happens when good teams play. No quit. Everybody knows the importance of these games.”
It did feel like that, as the teams finished the series where they began it — with the Padres (35-26) a game ahead of the Giants (35-28) and both chasing the Dodgers (38-25).
The Padres take a break from the NL West over the weekend, as they headed to Milwaukee on Thursday. There, they will face a Brewers team that has won nine of its past 10.
And it is not certain they will have shortstop Xander Bogaerts or first baseman Luis Arraez.
Thursday was the second day in a row a Padres infielder departed in the sixth inning, as Arraez felt tightness in his right knee fielding a groundball in the fourth inning and left the game after hitting two innings later. The team described his ailment as soreness in the back of his knee, and Arraez said he will play Friday.
Bogaerts did not play Thursday after being unable to continue the night before due to shoulder soreness he said had made it painful to bat for a couple days. Padres manager Mike Shildt said the team is “hopeful” Bogaerts plays Friday.
Even as they lost core of their team and lost games over the past two days, the Padres continued to make strides finding their offense.
Tuesday and Wednesday saw them reach double-digit hits for just the second and third times in 21 games. They had seven hits Thursday plus two balls hit in the final two innings that almost certainly would have been go-ahead home runs if not for the whirling, swirling winds coming in off the bay.
“The whole series we were hitting the ball really hard, just right at guys,” Machado said. “We’ve been unlucky for a little bit. So hopefully it turns around when we need it the most. But the most important thing is we’re grinding, man. We’re having some really good at-bats, and we had a good series offensively. So keep leaning, build on that, and go to Milwaukee and try to do the same thing.”
Aside from Machado’s blast, the Padres did most of their threatening against the two relievers that followed Giants starter Robbie Ray, who allowed four hits and struck out nine in seven innings.
Ray (8-1, 2.44) did not allow a hit between Machado’s homer with two outs in the third and a one-out single by Jose Iglesias in the seventh. And that hit, which bounced off the base of the left field wall and directly to Jerar Encarnacion, resulted in Iglesias being thrown out at second.
Brandon Lockridge led off the eighth inning against Randy Rodriguez with a single and moved to second on a wild pitch. But Fernando Tatis Jr.’s 396-foot fly ball to right-center field was chased down by center fielder Lee, before Tyler Wade, in for Arraez, struck out.
Camilo Doval, against whom Machado hit a two-run single to tie Tuesday’s game in the ninth inning, yielded another single to Machado to start Thursday’s ninth. After Jackson Merrill’s 104 mph fly ball got knocked down from the sky and into Lee’s glove in front of the warning track, Sheets lined a single that moved Machado to second before Iglesias grounded out and Jake Cronenworth struck out to end the game.
That ended the Padres’ attempt to win their fourth consecutive series and save Dylan Cease (1-5, 4.72) from losing his fifth consecutive decision.
The right-hander, who spread those five losses over 11 starts but has not earned a win since April 2, continued a grinding season with quite the adventure on Thursday.
One-out walks by Heliot Ramos and Jung Hoo Lee started the bottom of the third before Matt Chapman flared a single into right field to load the bases and Willy Adames drove a fly ball to the track to bring in Ramos.
After Chapman stole second base, Dominic Smith hit the ninth pitch of his at-bat 376 feet to right center field, where it bounced over the wall about 50 feet to the left of where Lee’s had done so.
Cease’s 32nd pitch of the inning got a groundout from Jerar Encarnacion.
From there, he did well to complete five innings.
He got just a short rest before having to come out for the bottom of the fourth when Ray took just six pitches to end the top of the inning. And after getting the first two outs in the fifth, Cease took a 104 mph line drive from Chapman off his right forearm.
After being checked by athletic trainer Ben Fraser, Cease remained in the game and struck out Adames with his 92nd pitch.
David Morgan took over to start the sixth and allowed one baserunner in each of his two scoreless innings. Yuki Matsui worked a scoreless eighth.
“Back and forth, one-run games,” Shildt said. “I mean, it was hard fought. … I thought Dylan battled his tail off to get through five. Took a heck of a comebacker and looks like he’s going to be OK. The bullpen was fantastic. … I mean, it was a hard-fought series.”
