Padres lose a game of what-ifs against Giants

However Monday night’s game turned out, there was going to be a lot to talk about.

Like what would have happened if an umpire in New York saw an apparent home run the same way it seemed many other people saw it.

And what might have happened if Ryan O’Hearn had been in the starting lineup.

There is no guarantee the night’s other events would have gone the way they did if anything was changed. And a loss is often littered with what-ifs to some extent.

But that the Giants ended up beating the Padres by one run on Monday night made it all worth pondering.

It was O’Hearn who hit a two-run homer off Giants starter Robbie Ray in the seventh inning to get the Padres to within a run after they had trailed by four almost from the start.

The game would end with that margin, with the Giants winning 4-3, because the Padres could not score again and because their apparent run in the second inning was taken away from them.

O’Hearn, a left-handed batter, has yet to start against a left-handed pitcher since joining the Padres at the trade deadline. He was on the bench Monday against the lefty Ray even after hitting a pinch-hit RBI double Sunday against the Dodgers and despite his having neutral splits against right- and left-handed pitchers this season.

What the Padres’ comeback also did was put an even brighter glare on the decision by umpire Mark Wegner, who made the call to take away the home run Xander Bogaerts hit in the second inning.

Until their three-run seventh inning, the Padres’ biggest scoring threat showed up in the box score as a fly ball out to left field.

That came when Bogaerts led off the second inning by sending a ball over the wall. It was ruled a home run by the umpires working the game, but after reaching up and having the ball go in and out of his glove, left fielder Heliot Ramos came down pointing at the stands.

A crew chief review, asked for by Giants manager Bob Melvin and determined by Wegner in New York after watching multiple slow-motion replays, resulted in the home run call being overturned due to spectator interference.

The official word was that the replay official determined a fan had reached into the field of play and interfered with the fielder’s ability to catch the ball.

Padres manager Mike Shildt, who was ejected for coming out to talk about the ruling, was incensed after the game because he thought there was no impediment to Ramos and because the review took two minutes, 40 seconds.

“That’s just really disappointing that that we go that long and have to come up with a conclusion that’s not conclusive to overturn a home run,” Shildt said. “Ends up costing us an opportunity to win a baseball game.”

By rule, the ball does not have to touch a fan who breaches the field of play. But the ball did appear to nick the fan’s arm on its way down.

“Before the ball even got to my glove, (the fan) was already with the hands up,” Ramos said. “… I saw his shadow coming on top of me, so I was kind of confused about it.”

Bogaerts’ blast would have been the fourth home run in the game.

The Giants hit three of them to take a 4-0 lead off Nestor Cortes before he got his second out.

It was the third consecutive game in which the Padres’ starting pitcher put his team in a hole right away.

Dylan Cease allowed the Dodgers three runs in the first inning on Saturday in what ended up a 6-0 loss. Yu Darvish yielded four runs to the Dodgers on Sunday in what ended up a 5-4 loss.

Monday’s early deficit happened and swelled even quicker than the previous two days, and the Padres this time were down by four runs before they even had a chance to bat.

The Giants appeared to have learned something facing Cortes six days earlier in San Francisco, where he allowed them one run over 4⅔ innings.

Ramos led off the game with a home run to left field on a 2-1 fastball below the knees. Rafael Devers came up next and yanked an 0-1 fastball up in the zone over the wall in right-center field. After a hard groundout by Willy Adames and Casey Schmitt’s doubled grounded down the left field line, Wilmer Flores parked another fastball at the top of the zone in the seats beyond left field to make it 4-0.

Cortes got two outs deep in the sixth inning without any further damage. David Morgan worked through the seventh, Wandy Peralta pitched the eighth and Mason Miller kept it a one-run game with a scoreless ninth.

But the Padres could to nothing outside scoring three unearned runs in the seventh.

They had just three baserunners in the first six innings.

Their fourth baserunner was their first to get to second base, as Bogaerts grounded a one-out double down the left field line in the seventh inning.

Jose Iglesias followed by sending a grounder to the left side that Schmitt, the Giants’ third baseman, bobbled and then threw wide of first base and into the side netting, allowing Bogaerts to score.

That is when bench coach Brian Esposito, managing in place of Mike Shildt, sent up O’Hearn to hit for Jake Cronenworth, who had been hit just above the elbow by a pitch in the fifth inning.

O’Hearn ripped the second pitch he saw 417 feet to center field.

That ended Ray’s night, and pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets singled off reliever Ryan Walker before Fernando Tatis Jr. grounded out to end the inning.

Luis Arraez led off the eighth inning with a single before Manny Machado struck out and Ramon Laureano grounded into a double play.

Iglesias hit a one-out single in the ninth inning before Freddy Fermin popped out and O’Hearn struck out against Randy Rodriguez.

The Padres have now trailed in 34 consecutive innings.

Their fourth consecutive loss kept them from moving within a game of the National League West-leading Dodgers, who lost in Colorado. It also dropped their lead over the Mets for the second of three wild-card spots to 2½ games.

“A couple (Gants) homers at 90 miles per hour,” Bogaerts said. “I mean, I hit mine at 105. Whatever. It didn’t go out. A lot of stuff is not going your way. And that’s the way this game goes. … It was a tough night. I mean, homer taken away.”