SAN DIEGO — The Padres lost a game Wednesday afternoon at Petco Park.
And as bad as that was, coming as it did with more atrocious situational hitting, they may have suffered an even bigger loss seven innings earlier.
Dinelson Lamet, their best starter a year ago, departed two innings into his first start of this season with what was termed by the team as forearm tightness.
And so, a season of great expectations continued to creep along in growing misery.
The Padres lost for the third straight day and the fifth time in a six-game homestand, falling 4-2 to the Milwaukee Brewers, who swept a three-game set at Petco Park for the second time in their past three visits.
The defeat dropped the Padres to .500 after 20 games. They have won just two of their six series. Their offense is a millstone around the neck of their pitching, and now they have possibly lost a second starting pitcher for the season.
The use of forearm tightness or strain in a preliminary diagnosis is often a precursor to an elbow injury. Padres’ left-hander Adrian Morejón underwent Tommy John surgery on Tuesday after leaving his April 11 start with what was at the time termed a forearm strain.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan at the start.
Lamet had struck out four batters through two innings. He had thrown 29 pitches, almost half of them the late-darting slider that made him one of the game’s best starting pitchers in 2020. His fastball topped 97 mph on multiple occasions, and the last one he threw left his hand at 95.5 mph.
And then Craig Stammen began warming up in the bullpen as the Padres batted in the bottom of the second inning.
Lamet’s first start of the season, delayed as the team brought him and his right elbow along slowly, was finished.
Lamet did not start a spring training game until March 24 and made four other starts in Arizona, including one more in spring training.
His progression in February and March was purposely plodding. Lamet, who had Tommy John surgery in 2018, departed his final regular-season start with elbow discomfort and did not pitch in the postseason. He spent more of the offseason than he normally would have resting his arm following platelet-rich plasma injections in October.
Stammen’s early entry meant the Padres bullpen had to cover at least seven innings for the fourth time in 11 days — with rookie Ryan Weathers scheduled to start Thursday against the Dodgers. Weathers threw 79 pitches in 3 2/3 innings, both career highs, this past Friday.
The Padres used seven relievers Wednesday. A couple threw for a second straight day. A couple others probably threw too many pitches to pitch again Thursday. That means they will be short-handed against the Dodgers, though they almost certainly will call up at a reliever.
They continued to struggle offensively. Wednesday, they provided a living picture definition of scratching across runs. That’s all they could do.
Their runs came in the third and fourth innings.
They put together a rally in the eighth inning, loading the bases with no outs on a single and two walks before consecutive strikeouts by Tommy Pham, Wil Myers and Victor Caratini.
Eric Hosmer came to the plate with runners at first and second following Fernando Tatis Jr.’s two-out double and Manny Machado’s walk in the ninth inning. But after Tatis stole third base and Machado advanced to second on a wild pitch, Hosmer struck out against Josh Hader.
It was Caratini who scored the first run of the game after lining a leadoff double to right field in the third inning, going to third on Stammen’s sacrifice bunt and scoring on Trent Grisham’s single. Grisham’s line drive was the Padres’ second hit in 11 at-bats with a runner in scoring position in the three-game series and their first run in 20 innings.
After the Brewers tied the game in the fourth, the Padres went back up in the bottom of that inning without getting a hit with a runner in scoring position.
Jurickson Profar led off with a double, went to third on a groundout by Ha-seong Kim and scored on Caratini’s slow grounder to first base.
The Brewers took their first lead in the sixth inning at the end of a bizarre two-pitch sequence.
With Travis Shaw on first base after a leadoff walk, Keone Kela threw a 2-2 curveball that Omar Narvaez took for what clearly should have been strike three but was called a ball. On Caratini’s throw back toward Kela, the ball hit Narvaez’s bat and rolled onto the infield grass toward third base as Shaw ran to second.
Narvaez launched the next pitch into the seats beyond right field.
Kela got the next two outs before Jace Peterson made it 4-2 by hitting a ball to almost same spot Narvaez had.
The Padres finished with seven hits Wednesday and are batting .162 (25 for 154) over the past five games. The team previously known as Slam Diego is 2 for 21 with the bases loaded this season following the three failures in the eighth inning. And after going 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position Wednesday, they are batting .207 in that situation this season.
