PHOENIX — The script was changed and then flipped and then became a horror show.
The San Diego Padres lost 12-3 to the Arizona Diamondbacks on Thursday night at Chase Field after they couldn’t build on a quick start against a lowly team and their ace left the game accompanied by an athletic trainer.
A night after a 7-0 loss to the Miami Marlins, Thursday brought the Padres’ second-largest margin of defeat this season.
It was oddly familiar in more ways than that.
The Padres scored against the reliever they couldn’t touch six days earlier and couldn’t touch the starter they roughed up six days earlier.
What was different was that the reliever started and the starter relieved this time.
Confusing?
Par for the course for the Padres.
And that wasn’t all.
Yu Darvish, so good against the Diamondbacks in his last start, couldn’t command any of his pitches consistently Thursday. He gave up five runs in the third inning and was gone before that inning was finished with what was later called lower back tightness.
Darvish walked off the field with Head Athletic Trainer Mark Rogow by his side. Padres manager Jayce Tingler seemed to make the decision to pull Darvish over the pitcher’s mild protest.
The right-hander, who spent time on the injured list last month with a hip issue and had been bothered by back tightness earlier in the season, slipped on his first pitch to Josh VanMeter. That is what brought Tingler and Rogow to the mound, though it appeared Darvish wasn’t entirely comfortable for a time before that.
Darvish had been so strong Saturday against Arizona, striking out 12, walking one and allowing two runs on four hits.
He struck out four of the eight batters he saw in Thursday’s first two innings but took 41 pitches to do so. Just 24 of those pitches were strikes, a 59% rate well below his 66% season rate.
Darvish began the inning by yielding a single to Diamondbacks’ pitcher Caleb Smith and walking Josh Rojas before getting an out. A two-run double by Pavin Smith, single by Carson Kelly and David Peralta’s two-run homer, in succession, put the Diamondbacks up 5-2.
Matt Strahm ended the third inning with a strikeout of VanMeter before allowing three runs in the fourth. The Diamondbacks scored two more in the seventh and twice in the eighth.
The Padres’ offense, as has been among its most consistent traits, went cold after scoring early.
Eric Hosmer’s double play ended a two-run first inning. The Padres did not get another baserunner until Hosmer beat out an infield single in the fourth. With a run in the sixth inning — when Manny Machado reached on a two-base error by Diamondbacks center fielder Starling Marte, went to third on Jake Cronenworth’s single and scored on Hosmer’s fielder’s choice grounder — the Padres have scored in two of their past 19 innings.
Thursday had some plot twists reminiscent of the Diamondbacks’ 8-5 victory Friday, including that Diamondbacks pitchers Matt Peacock and Caleb Smith played key roles.
That was not what was expected.
Scheduled Diamondbacks starter Taylor Widener was scratched and placed on the injured list for an undisclosed reason early Thursday evening. He was replaced by Peacock, who shut out the Padres out on three hits over 4 2/3 innings of relief on Friday.
Tommy Pham’s double and Adam Frazier’s triple greeted Peacock before he got an out Thursday. Jake Cronenworth’s one-out single scored Frazier.
Peacock got the first out of the second inning before being replaced by Smith, who had started Friday and allowed five runs before being lifted for Peacock with one out in the second.
Smith walked six and gave up three hits Friday. Six days later, he was much sharper. He allowed four hits, walked one and surrendered only the unearned run in 5 1/3 innings before leaving with two outs in the seventh.
Peacock was awarded the win Friday. Smith got the win Thursday.
The loss dropped the Padres to nine games behind the San Francisco Giants in the National League West and cut the Padres’ lead over the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Wild Card race to 31/2 games.
While the Padres’ .564 winning percentage is third best in franchise history behind only the club’s two World Series seasons, their circumstance of being all but out of the division race and clinging to a small wild-card lead is largely because of games like Thursday.
The Diamondbacks are as bad as they have ever been. Their 35-80 record entering Thursday comprised their worst 115-game start in history.
But the loss dropped the Padres to 34-28 against teams currently with records at .500 or below.
The Giants are 23 games above .500 while the Reds are 14 games above .500 in such games.
