A sweep would have been nice but against a first place team, on a day where nothing really got going, the Padres will take a series win.
San Diego left eight runners on base in a 7-1 loss to the Giants on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park.
Fernando Tatis Jr. started the game off with a bang. In the first inning he popped a solo home run to the Petco Porch down the right field line. El Nino’s 8th of the year puts him just one off the Major League lead. Alas, it was the only run the Padres would get against Giants starter Kevin Gausman.
They had runners in scoring position with two outs in the 3rd, 4th, and 6th innings but couldn’t find that one hit to really get the offense going. Gausman ended up going 6.0 innings with six strikeouts.
Joe Musgrove started for the Padres and didn’t have his best stuff. He gave up four runs in the 3rd inning, three of them on a home run by Mike Tauchman that put San Francisco on top 4-1.
The Giants broke it open in the 5th when Tommy LaStella tripled home Gausman and scored on a groundout by Wilmer Flores (who was robbed of a hit because of a tremendous diving stop by Tatis at short). Musgrove got through the fifth inning and punched out six but took the loss.
The Padres bullpen did a nice job until the 9th inning, when Aaron Northcraft allowed a run by walking four Giants hitters.
The Padres open a 3-game set against the Pirates on Monday night at Petco Park.
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