SAN DIEGO _ His bags slung over his shoulder, Jabari Blash walked through the clubhouse doors Sunday morning, then stopped short and curiously scanned the room. The location of his locker wasn't all that looked different upon the outfielder's return to the majors.
"A lot has changed," Blash acknowledged with a smile.
Indeed.
Even more could be on the way.
A day after Matt Kemp was shipped to the Braves, trade rumors surrounding catcher Derek Norris persisted even before the Padres endured a 3-2 loss to the Reds in which fill-in starter Paul Clemens exited in the fifth inning with lower back tightness.
The Padres were already sending yet another new starter to the mound Monday, they started minor league signee Ryan Schimpf in the cleanup spot for the first time and gave rookie shortstop Jose Rondon his second straight start over 34-year-old Alexei Ramirez.
Without Kemp or Melvin Upton Jr. on the roster, the look that Blash gets in the starting lineup will be even longer after he spent his first stint here as a seldom-used Rule-5 outfielder off the bench.
"Who he is, those long levers, those aren't the swings that play well off the bench and that's what we asked him to do," Green said. "There just wasn't an opportunity to get him out there consistently. We always said we'd love to get him a long look and see what he does with consistent laying time and that time is now.
"We'll see what he does with it."
Blash didn't waste much time Sunday.
The owner of three hits in his first 29 appearances before the Padres bailed on his Rule-5 experiment, the 27-year-old Blash singled sharply to center field on the first pitch he saw from Homer Bailey.
Trouble is, the Padres mustered just three others off Bailey in his first major league appearance since a May 2015 Tommy John procedure and stumbled in the sixth with a chance to land the knockout blow.
Bailey issued all three of his walks in the frame but received some help when Alexi Amarista attempted to scamper home from third on a wild-pitch on a ball-four offering to Schimpf only to be thrown out at the plate.
The bases would have been loaded had he played it safe and stayed at third.
Instead there were two outs when Blash drew a walk that would have loaded the bases had Wil Myers opted against a gamble of his own.
His paid off.
Disgusted with a full-count call that sent Blash to first, Bailey turned his back to the plate. Myers took notice and then took off for home to cut the Padres' deficit to 3-2 without even a throw from Bailey.
The delayed steal _ as delayed as it gets _ ended Bailey's afternoon with two runs allowed on four hits and three walks in 5 2/3 innings. He struck out six and gave way to right-hander Blake Wood, who struck out Christian Bethancourt to end the threat.
Two innings later, Bethancourt left the bases loaded when he flied to the warning track in left. Blash went down swinging a batter before him on a 95 mph fastball from Michael Lorenzen.
In the ninth, Reds closer struck out the first two batters he faced before inducing a weak fly ball from the pinch-hitting Norris to end the game.
The Reds had the lead because they tacked two runs on Buddy Baumann's ledger an inning after lower back tightness forced Clemens from his second start for the new-look Padres.
The 28-year-old right-hander served up a two-run, 424-foot homer to Jose Peraza in the second inning, but struck out five, walked just one and looked to be settling into a groove when trainers joined him on the mound after fetching a ground out from Bailey to open the fifth, his ninth consecutive out.
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