SAN DIEGO _ Diego Castillo helped Joey Lucchesi go longer in a game Monday night.
But not the kind of longer that actually helps the San Diego Padres. (Or that is good for baseball.)
Castillo, the right-hander who started the game for the Tampa Bay Rays, throws fast but works slowly. He took upwards of 40 seconds between many of the 13 pitches he threw in the first inning. Lucchesi is not quite as plodding, but he walked two batters and gave up a towering home run en route to throwing 27 pitches in a first inning that took a half-hour.
That began a game that got sad and then silly and could arguably be considered a low point to a second half that has seen the Padres fall off a cliff.
Castillo, serving as the "opener," left after the first inning. Lucchesi lasted just 4 2/3 innings, his wildness having helped the Rays to a lead in a game they would win 10-4 on a slow-moving evening at Petco Park.
The Padres offense did their part to move the game along, managing just four hits after the second inning. The Rays scored three runs off Trey Wingenter in the seventh and added four against Carl Edwards Jr. in the eighth.
Over the course of the third-longest nine-inning game the Padres have played this season (three hours, 47 minutes), the life was drained from the crowd even before it diminished from an announced 21,301 to about maybe 1,000 people by the time Padres infielder Ian Kinsler came in to pitch the ninth inning.
In the bottom of the ninth, as a group of fans chanted "I-an Kins-ler," he launched a two-run homer into left field seats.
Lucchesi, in his second big-league season, has made more career starts (49) than any pitcher on the Padres staff. He has been challenged, as the entire rotation has, to throw more innings.
There have been signs he is on the verge of consistently doing so, but command issues such as those he encountered Monday have stunted that progress.
His one-out walk to Travis d'Arnaud in the first meant the churve he hung in the upper middle portion of the plate that Avisail Garcia launched into the seats in left field was a two-run homer.
The Padres tied the game 2-2 _ Fernando Tatis Jr. reaching on an error and scoring on Eric Hosmer's double in the first, and Manuel Margot leading off the second inning with a double and scoring on Lucchesi's single.
But a lead-off walk to Guillermo Heredia in what ended up a 26-pitch third inning led to a run when Heredia advanced to third on Garcia's single and scored on a single by Matt Duffy.
A two-out single in the fifth, on Lucchesi's 94th pitch, brought Luis Perdomo into the game.
It was the second time in six starts since the All-Star break that Lucchesi failed to last five innings.
