SAN DIEGO _ The boos were not thunderous. More like a sporadic sprinkling.
But they are getting louder and raining down earlier.
There is displeasure at Petco Park _ in May, for a team that on Saturday fell to .500 for just the third time this season and first time in almost a month.
At least it means something is expected of the Padres.
Unless they can find some more reliable starting pitching and the bullpen regains its strength and Wil Myers stops striking out and Austin Hedges starts hitting even just a little bit, and at least until Fernando Tatis Jr. returns, tempered expectations might be in order.
Or more boos forthcoming.
The Pirates continued the Padres' run of disappointing baseball with an easily earned 7-2 victory on Saturday night.
Josh Bell's solo home run in the second inning was followed immediately by Mark Reynolds' solo homer. Bell's three-run homer in the third inning gave the Pirates a 5-0 lead that was never really threatened.
The Padres leadoff hitter reached base five times in the first eight innings and had a runner on with less than two outs in seven of those innings yet scored a single run just twice. The Pirates won a game in which they started rookie reliever Montana DeRaPau and used five more members of a bullpen that entered Saturday allowing an average of 4.8 runs per game.
It was the Padres' sixth loss in their past eight games, a run that has them at 23-23 for the season.
That is the franchise's best record after 46 games of a season since 2010.
But the same Padres fans who have raised the roof for Tatis and Manny Machado have raised the floor on expectations.
An 11-5 start only furthered what people believed this team could be. Even the most realistic and patient among the Friar Faithful seemed inclined to assume the team would at least continue to be exciting.
The frustration on Saturday was primarily at starting pitcher Nick Margevicius' inability to keep the ball from going to the outfield seats and the offense's inability to score.
The latter has been far more pervasive a problem. The former is something the Padres will likely scrutinize increasingly.
The Pirates hit four home runs against Margevicius. After starting the season by allowing one run in each of his first three career starts, the left-handed rookie has in his past six starts allowed 22 runs in 29 1/3 innings.
The Padres are 7-11 since Tatis strained his left hamstring. They are 4-7 during Machado's 11-game hitting streak, a span in which he is hitting .366 and getting on-base at a .438 clip. His extension of the streak Saturday came on an RBI single in the third inning. But the same problem persisted _ that on most nights no more than one or two other Padres muster much in the way off offensive contribution.
When Margevicius was pulled immediately after Gregory Polanco smashed a solo homer leading off the fifth inning, which gave the Pirates a 6-1 lead, the double switch Padres manager Andy Green perpetrated involved putting Manuel Margot in center field and removing Myers. Yes, down five runs in the fifth inning, the team's third-highest paid player was pulled.
But this is not a version of Myers who could rightly be expected to help the Padres come back. It's not the Myers who brought a .328 on-base percentage and popped an extra-base hit every 10 at-bats entering this season. It isn't even the Myers who was hitting .303/.346/.553 less than a month ago. This Myers has struck out in 33 of his past 65 at-bats, including the pair in his two times up Saturday.
After Austin Allen's pinch-hit single drove in Hunter Renfroe from third to make it 6-2 in the sixth inning, Allen stayed in the game to catch, part of another double switch that resulted in a struggling hitter sitting down.
Hedges had made the second out of the sixth inning, striking out for the second time in an 0-for-3 night and dropping his average to .163 for the season.
The Padres actually accomplished something offensively on Saturday that they have been striving for, drawing five walks in a game for the first time since April 27. They entered Saturday with the lowest walk rate in the majors (once every 14.8 plate appearances).
But in the midst of the free passes, they continued to get two outs for the price of one as well.
One-out walks by Ian Kinsler and Franmil Reyes preceded Machado's RBI single in the third inning, and Eric Hosmer followed with a walk to load the bases. Hunter Renfroe then hit a grounder to third that became the Padres' 38th double-play grounder in 262 chances this season, a 14.5% rate that to that point was second highest in the majors.
That also brought boos.
As did Machado overrunning a foul ball in the seventh.
By the time Allen's wide throw on an attempted steal of second caromed off Machado's glove and rolled into right field, allowing Starling Marte to advance to third, the crowd seemed too resigned to the night's outcome to muster much more than some aahs.
That is the sound of indifference that has accompanied so much bad baseball here over the years.
