Injury-depleted Padres blanked a second straight game

Jeff Sanders, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 26, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — The road had not been kind.

Another outfielder joined the San Diego Padres’ growing injury list. Their three-time batting champ went down in a heap at first base. The offense was shut out for the first time since a 24-inning drought ended a promising postseason run in October.

“We’re glad to be home,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said Friday afternoon. “I can tell you that.”

They’d be even happier to be healthy.

A make-shift lineup was blanked for a second straight game, extending the Padres’ current scoreless streak to 25 innings in a 1-0 loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in front of 43,319 at Petco Park.

Michael King struck out nine, but he lasted just five innings and was undone in part by a throwing error from Xander Bogaerts and a lineup — heavy on players who joined the organization on minor league deals over the last year-plus — that hasn’t scored since the second inning on Tuesday.

Tyler Wade signed a minor league deal before the 2024 season. Elias Díaz signed his last August after he was released by the Rockies. Gavin Sheets, Jose Iglesias and Oscar Gonzalez signed their deals before this season. In between them, long-time organizational outfielder Tirso Ornelas on Friday was making his first start Petco Park after eight years in the minors.

Those six players combined to go 2-for-19 in Friday’s loss, the Padres’ fifth in their last seven games and just their second loss in 14 home games this season.

The top third of the lineup — Fernando Tatis Jr., Bogaerts and Manny Machado — went 3-for-11 with a walk.

King stranded a leadoff single and a two-out walk in the second inning. He did not escape the third inning unscathed.

Taylor Walls reached on a tapper to shortstop when Sheets couldn’t dig Bogaerts’ short throw out of the dirt. The speedy Chandler Simpson followed with a bunt up the third-base line that King could only pocket. Then Brandon Lowe lined a single in front of Tatis in right to load the bases.

An ensuing fly ball to left field from Yandy Díaz plated an unearned run before King managed to get out of the inning with just a 1-0 deficit.

King pitched two more scoreless frames before exiting with 90 pitches (59 strikes). He struck out nine, walked one and allowed four hits en route to giving up just the one unearned run.

Even that was insurmountable on Friday for a lineup missing Jackson Merrill, Jake Cronenworth, Luis Arraez and Jason Heyward, as well as back-up center fielder Brandon Lockridge.

A next-man-up mentality allowed the Padres to win seven of nine of their first nine games without Merrill — the first injury to strike — and even carry baseball’s best record into Detroit.

But the seams seem to be stretching.

Tatis did almost all the heavy lifting on Sunday to help the Padres avoid a sweep and Díaz’s two-run home run in the second inning on Tuesday as all they needed in their one victory in Detroit.

Since then?

Nada. Zip. Zilch.

The Padres did not collect their first hit until Wade — the fill-in for the back-up center fielder — singled with two outs in the third inning. Tatis followed with a single but Bogaerts struck out to keep the Padres from answering the Rays’ one-run rally.

Machado was stranded after leading off the fourth with a single and all they had to show for Ornelas’ leadoff single in the fifth was the ball. The Tijuana native got his hands on the souvenir after a line drive landed safely in center field, kissed it before throwing it toward the Padres’ dugout and then was promptly erased on a double-play ball from Díaz.

Bogaerts walked with one out in the sixth inning, but Machado bounced into an inning-ending double play. Ornelas popped out to end the seventh after Iglesias was hit by a pitch and swiped second with two outs. Bogaerts struck out looking after Tatis’ one-out double in the eighth.

Sheets reached base on a passed ball on his strikeout with one out in the ninth, but pinch-runner Mason McCoy was doubled off first base after Kameron Misner’s tumbling catch on Oscar Gonzalez’s fly ball to shallow right.