OAKLAND, Calif. _ Chris Paddack kept his team in the game.
It was not enough. It is not enough.
The Padres dropped Saturday afternoon's game to the Oakland A's, 8-4, after Paddack again struggled in the early innings.
The A's had a 4-0 lead by the second inning against Paddack, and the Padres only briefly threatened against Oakland starter Sean Manaea and then mounted a too-little, too-late rally in the final two innings.
The A's added four runs against Matt Strahm (one) and Luis Patino (three).
The Padres scored twice in the eighth inning on Austin Nola's first home run with them, Wil Myers' double and Jake Cronenworth's single. They added a run in the ninth on Trent Grisham's single, Fernando Tatis Jr.'s double and a sacrifice fly by Manny Machado.
Paddack fell to 3-4 with a 4.75 ERA. The Padres are 4-5 in the games he starts.
Saturday was just the second time this season he hasn't completed at least five innings.
Consistently surviving is a dubious achievement. Battling is not what an aspiring ace is supposed to spend an abundance of time doing.
The fact the 25-year-old Paddack generally holds off an avalanche, that he can often last in games where his fastball leaks and his change-up floats might demonstrate just how good his stuff is and/or how relentless he is.
But the Padres would prefer to see that ability to grind on a rarer basis.
He was at it again Saturday, for what could be considered the fourth or fifth time in nine starts this season.
He allowed two runs in the first inning and two in the second.
That left almost moot that he allowed just three baserunners after the initial damage and finished with six strikeouts. He went just 4 2/3 innings before being replaced by Strahm with a runner on first.
After allowing just seven first-inning runs (scored in just four games) last season, Paddack has allowed eight already (over four games) in 2020.
This season was supposed to be about Paddack, unleashed.
Yet he threw 82 pitches Saturday and has gone into the 90s three times. He threw more than 90 pitches in eight of his final 13 starts in 2019, a year in which the rookie was on a strict workload limit as he worked back from Tommy John surgery. He looked like he could have thrown well over 100 in many starts last year had his long-term health not been the priority.
His start last Saturday in Colorado was the only one about which that could be said this year. That start, in which he allowed two unearned runs in six innings, was a hoped-for beginning of a turnaround. But his fastball command that made him so dominant for stretches of 2019 again eluded him.
Paddack, who got at least six outs at the start of games in six games last season, has not done so this year.
By the time he has gotten the sixth out in five games this season, the Padres have been trailing.
Manaea allowed a run on four hits and struck out five in his five innings.
He got a lot of rough hacks from Padres hitters. In the third, a couple of those awkward swings produced hits that helped load the bases.
Jurickson Profar led off the inning with a line-drive single to center field. Trent Grisham followed with an accidental bunt single of sorts, as a pitch hit his checked swing and ricocheted slowly down the third-base line. Manny Machado followed with a bloop single to right.
Profar scored when Eric Hosmer beat out what might have been a double-play grounder.
Machado's chopper to the left side in the first inning was the Padres' only other hit against the left-handed Manaea.
The Padres are 5-3 on this trip, which concludes Sunday.
