SAN DIEGO_Joey Lucchesi is still seeking that game where his heart and his arm both show up to play and he does what he knows he can.
So are the San Diego Padres.
The rookie left-hander lasted just four innings in a 9-4 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks that took almost four hours to complete Friday night at Petco Park.
The three hour, 46 minute game was the Padres' longest nine-inning game this season.
After winning six of 10 games to start this month, the Padres have lost five straight and have dropped 21 of their past 25 home games dating to June 19. Included in that are five straight losses to the Diamondbacks since July 27.
An inning after Lucchesi (6-7) departed, the Padres got to within 5-3 on Eric Hosmer's home run in the fifth. But Steven Souza's bases-loaded double off reliever Miguel Diaz in the sixth inning cleared the bases.
Manuel Margot added a solo homer in the eighth, which only answered Eduardo Ecobar's home run in the top of that inning.
Jose Pirela scored the Padres first two runs after drawing walks. Hunter Renfroe's ground ball scored Pirela in the first, and Hosmer's single drove in Pirela in the third.
Lucchesi was the first of the five starting pitchers to make his major league debut for the Padres this season, doing so in the season's second game. He went 4 2/3 innings that day and then made it through at least five innings in eight straight starts before going on the disabled list with a hip strain on May 15.
He returned five weeks later and has gone at least five innings in just five of his 10 starts.
Of late, his command has been sporadic.
He was able to essentially gut his way through six shutout innings in his previous start, Sunday against the Philadelphia Phillies. Despite throwing fastballs high and low and not having any idea where his breaking pitches were going, he allowed just two hits that day.
On Friday, the National League West leaders saw his pitches much better _ and hit many more of them.
Lucchesi walked three and allowed nine hits, including Paul Goldschmidt's two-run homer in the first inning and a double and three singles that added up to two runs before there was an out in the second. The Diamondbacks scored their fifth run on two singles and a ground ball in the fourth inning.
Lucchesi' season can be split almost into a tale of two halves _ before and after the DL.
In his nine starts before the injury, he posted a 3.23 ERA over 47 1/3 innings. In the 10 since, he has a 4.37 ERA in 45 1/3 innings. His rate of walks and hits per innings pitched has risen from 1.23 in the first nine to 1.39 since.
