The Padres Came Into Our Ballpark and Took All Three

Wednesday we scored six in the eighth and swept the Cardinals. Then San Diego showed up, won three straight by a combined five runs, and Logan Webb couldn't stop it Sunday. Padres 6, Giants 4.

Five to nothing. Second inning, Sunday afternoon, sun out, 35,000 people in the building, Logan Webb on the mound, and Manny Machado's ball is sailing out to left and it's five to nothing.

I was folding laundry. I put the towel down and just sat there holding it.

Padres 6, Giants 4. That's a sweep. Three games at Oracle Park against the team I can stand the least in this whole sport, and they took every single one of them.

Wednesday feels like a month ago

It was four days ago. Wednesday afternoon, St. Louis, and we're down 6 to 1 going to the bottom of the eighth after Blade Tidwell gave up five in four innings and the defense kicked the ball around for three errors. I'd checked out. I had it on at work with the sound off and I wasn't even looking at it anymore.

Then Bryce Eldridge singles two home. Jonah Cox singles in another. Jung Hoo Lee doubles two more in and it's tied, and Shay Whitcomb, a guy hitting in the .160s, rips a double to right and Lee scores from second and we're winning.

Six runs in one inning. Giants 7, Cardinals 6. Matt Wilkinson threw two scoreless, Trent Harris shut the door, and that was a three game sweep of St. Louis after the Roupp game on Tuesday.

I texted my brother a row of exclamation points I'm not proud of. I thought maybe this team had found something for the last three weeks.

Then the Padres got off the plane.

Friday Devers hit a grand slam and it still wasn't enough

Anthony Molina lasted three innings Friday night. Nine hits, seven runs. San Diego put five on him in the third alone, four extra base hits in that one inning, and I watched every ball rattle around out there like the outfield had somewhere better to be.

Down 7 to 1 in the fifth, Rafael Devers comes up with the bases loaded against Robbie Ray and hits a grand slam to right. Number 36. Seven to five, and 38,381 people remembered they were at a ballgame.

And then nothing. Yunior Marte came in and threw five scoreless innings of relief, which honestly deserves its own column, and our lineup couldn't scrape together two more runs in four innings of trying. Mason Miller walked two in the ninth just to mess with me and Eldridge took strike three to end it.

Saturday we got the tying run to the plate and stopped

Devers again in the first inning Saturday. Two run homer to right center. Thirty seven. Whitcomb homered in the second and we led 3 to 2, and for maybe half an hour I let myself believe this weekend might go a different way.

San Diego scored in every inning from the second through the seventh. Every one. Jackson Merrill homered, Fernando Tatis Jr. homered, Jake Cronenworth drove in a run with a bunt single, a bunt, and Whitcomb booted one at third in the seventh that made it 7 to 3. Cesar Perdomo gave up ten hits in four and two thirds. Xander Bogaerts, hitting .224 on the year, went 4 for 5 against us.

Then the eighth. Drew Cavanaugh hits his first homer of the season. Christian Koss gets aboard. Drew Gilbert hits one out to right and it's 7 to 6 and 40,146 people are standing up. Bradgley Rodriguez faced three guys and gave up three hits and I really thought we had him.

Adrian Morejon came in and shut the inning down. Miller struck out two in the ninth. Done.

We left one runner on base the entire game. One. Which tells you exactly how few of them we had.

Sunday Webb didn't have it

I hate writing this part. Merrill doubled two home in the first. Tatis singled one in in the second and Machado hit the two run homer and it was over before half the people at a 4:22 start had found their seats.

Webb went five. Eight hits, six runs, seven strikeouts. His ERA's up to 4.31. He's been the one guy in this rotation I've never had to worry about, and now it's September and I'm worried about him, and I don't like that feeling at all.

We chipped at it. Andrew Knizner hit a two run homer in the second. Eldridge drove one in on a groundout in the fifth. Koss singled Scott Bandura home in the sixth and it was 6 to 4 with three innings to go. Wilkinson threw three scoreless and Harris threw another one, so the bullpen gave us every chance we could ask for.

Nine left on base. Cox struck out three times, the last one to end the game. He's hitting .280 and he's been one of the few fun things about this summer, so I'm not piling on him. It just felt like the right way for the weekend to end, which is the worst thing I can say about it.

Seven straight for them

San Diego's won seven in a row. They're 81 and 68 and sitting in a wild card spot, and they got to pick up three of those wins in our house in front of more than 113,000 people over three days. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that.

We're 62 and 88. Twenty eight and a half back of the Dodgers. We swept the Cardinals and got swept by the Padres in the same week, and I honestly can't tell you which one is the real team. Probably both. That's been the problem all year.

Devers has 37, and I said it in the September update: nobody outside this town is noticing. Eldridge is hitting .269. Marte and Wilkinson looked like real relievers this weekend. Those are the notes I'm keeping.

Three in St. Louis starting Monday. At least it isn't San Diego.

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