Padres can’t overcome another big deficit, get swept by Orioles

The Padres could say they fought back on Wednesday.

Not that they chose to say it.

They instead acknowledged — following a 7-5 defeat by the Orioles, the Padres’ eighth loss in 10 games — where they are at and declared where they believe they are still headed.

“Terrible homestand,” Manny Machado said. “We got swept. Could have played a lot better. But just keep grinding, man. It’s a tough, tough stretch. It’s been a bad few weeks for us, but we’re going to get over it.”

For whatever else they are doing or not doing, the biggest problem on Wednesday was, as it has been too often lately, the need to fight back.

The Padres simply could not make up all the ground that was swept from under them by an avalanche of home runs allowed by Nestor Cortes.

“You’re pleased with the effort, you’re pleased with the fight, you’re pleased with the competitiveness,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said after his team scored the game’s final five runs. “But you’re clearly disappointed and frustrated with the outcome, you know, not only today, but recently. Very frustrated, very disappointed.”

A sweep at the hands of a team that arrived in San Diego with the second-worst record (61-76) in the American League dropped the Padres to 12 games above .500 (76-64) for the first time since Aug. 8, when they were 64-52.

The Dodgers lost for a second straight night in Pittsburgh, so the Padres remained 2½ games back in the National League West. The Mets lost Wednesday and remain a game behind the Padres, who hold the second of three NL wild-card spots.

The Reds also lost, so they remain five games behind the Mets and six behind the Padres. The Giants passed the Reds by beating the Rockies, which put them four games behind the Mets and five behind the Padres.

With 22 games remaining, the Padres have an awareness of the standings but have their focus on themselves.

Cortes articulated what is on virtually everyone’s mind as the Padres have lost five of six against the Orioles and Twins (62-76).

“It’s tough to lose against teams that aren’t really in it,” he said.

But among the Padres’ core tenets under Shildt is that they are the ones to dictate how games go.

“We don’t care who we play,” Machado said. “We gotta play our game, and we’re not playing our game and we’re not executing it, and that’s really the important part. It’s not really about the other team. It’s about us. We’ve got to play better. We haven’t really been paying to that level. So just keep our heads up. Keep going, keep grinding and playing our game.”

What is not said (because it doesn’t have to be) is that it is difficult to play any kind of game when trailing — often by multiple runs — so early.

Cortes was the latest of the starting pitchers to put the Padres in a hole.

He allowed six runs on four homers before being replaced by Sean Reynolds with one out in the third inning.

It has been nine games since one of the Padres’ starting pitchers threw a pitch in the sixth inning. Nick Pivetta is the only one to have completed five innings in that span. Not counting David Morgan’s two scoreless innings at the start of Sunday’s bullpen game, Padres starters have an 8.01 ERA in 30⅓ innings over their past eight games.

Go back 18 games to Aug. 16, and the rotation’s ERA is 5.40. And that includes a stretch of five quality starts in a six-game span from Aug. 19 to 24 in which they had a 2.31 ERA.

In eight of those 18 games, the Padres trailed at least 2-0 by the fourth inning. In five of them, it was at least 3-0 by the third inning.

Teams that trail even 1-0 are winning just 33% of the time in the major leagues this season.

“We’ve just got to do a better job,” Cortes said of the starting pitchers. “Plain and simple. Just got to try and get deep into games. Especially me. Like, two innings and three innings ain’t going to cut it in this league. So just got to be better.”

After yielding a leadoff homer to Jackson Holliday on the third pitch of the game, the third inning is when Cortes allowed three consecutive home runs — a three-run shot by Colton Cowser and solo blasts by Coby Mayo and Alex Jackson in a span of four pitches — and was booed off the field after being replaced by Reynolds.

“I would have booed myself too if I was watching this game,” Cortes said. “It’s unacceptable, it’s embarrassing. Just got to be better. That’s all.”

Reynolds surrendered another run before ending the third inning and then worked through the fifth without any more damage. Kyle Hart retired the Orioles in order in the sixth. Jeremiah Estrada worked a scoreless seventh. In the eighth, Mason Miller struck out the side on nine pitches to complete the second immaculate inning in Padres history (the other being Brian Lawrence in 2002) and the 121st ever thrown in the major leagues. Robert Suarez worked a 1-2-3 ninth with help from Ramón Laureano running 70 feet toward the short wall in the left field corner and leaping to rob Cowser of another home run.

In the midst of all that is when the Padres battled back.

They spent five innings in what seemed to be a shock-induced slumber.

“Winners find solutions,” Shildt said. “But we’re human too. … No excuses. Give (Orioles starter Cade) Povich credit. And then the group figured him out. … But yeah, it’s a little bit of a kick playing down.”

The figuring out Shildt alluded to looked like the Padres scoring four runs off Povich in the sixth inning and another against Keegan Akin in the seventh.

With a two-run homer by Machado, a pair of singles and a pair of walks, they brought the potential tying run to the plate in the sixth before a double play grounder with the bases loaded got them to 7-4 and a strikeout ended the inning.

Fernando Tatis Jr.’s homer leading off the seventh made it 7-5.

A leadoff single by Laureano in the eighth inning was followed by three strikeouts.

The Padres’ final gasp was even quieter.

Facing Yennier Cano in the ninth inning, pinch-hitter Will Wagner and Tatis struck out and Luis Arraez grounded out.

Really, though, the end came at the start.

“I think if pitchers give length and we stay in the game, this offense has a chance to win every night,” Cortes said. “And if the starting pitcher stays in the game as long as we can and turn it over to the bullpen, we’ve already seen what they can do. So it’s on the starting pitchers to give length and be able to compete out there.”