Sloppy Padres drop fourth straight in shutout loss to Cardinals

ST. LOUIS — Near the end of a road trip that began so well, the Padres have wilted.

Their sloppy play in Friday night’s 3-0 loss to the Cardinals paired perfectly with the gross Midwestern heat, but it was strange to see the Padres play that way.

“We beat ourselves,” manager Mike Shildt said. “We gave up too much free stuff.”

The Padres have generally been able to count on sound defense and smart baserunning to help overcome their often anemic offense.

That did not happen Friday, as they made a crucial out on the bases, made a crucial error behind second base and made some choices that arguably helped the Cardinals to a couple runs.

This came a night after the Padres scored seven runs, something else they don’t often do, and lost.

The Padres began this three-city, 10-game trek by winning two of three in Washington and taking the opener of a three-game series in Miami.

They have not won in the four games since. The four-game skid is their first since mid-May, and it put them in danger of falling into a tie with the Giants for the final National League wild-card spot after being 3½ games up on Monday.

Nick Pivetta earned his 12th quality start of the season after allowing three runs (two earned) in 6⅓ innings, but the batter he hit and both batters he walked were the ones to score.

His 90-pitch slog on a muggy 88-degree night began after an eight-pitch first inning.

The bottom of the second took considerably longer, as the benches and bullpens cleared and the Cardinals took a 1-0 lead.

The inning began with Pivetta hitting Willson Contreras on the arm with a 94 mph fastball.

Contreras briefly glanced out at Pivetta, who appeared to tell Contreras to not look at him.

Padres catcher Elias Díaz got between the two as they continued to exchange words. Players emerged from the Cardinals dugout first with the Padres, in the far dugout, charging out a split-second later and both bullpens a few seconds later.

All that ensued was some milling around on the grass, but the umpires got together and issued warnings to both teams.

Pivetta was then victimized by an error and a curious decision, as Contreras came around to score without the Cardinals getting a hit.

Nolan Arenado followed Contreras to the plate and hit what might have been a double-play grounder had Jake Cronenworth been able to field the ball cleanly behind second base. Cronenworth was instead charged with an error after the ball appeared to skip oddly off the dirt in front of second base and then off Cronenworth’s glove.

“It just kicked up,” said Cronenworth, who said he thought the ball nicked the base.

Masyn Winn bunted both runners over before Yohel Pozo hit a hard grounder to shortstop Xander Bogaerts, who was playing in on the grass. With Contreras heading home on contact and Arenado running behind him, Bogaerts fielded the ball from his knees, got up and looked home and then threw to first base despite appearing to have a play at the plate.

“I was gonna throw from my knees, but then I didn’t think it would have been smart to do that,” Bogaerts said. “So I got up. If I had looked (back), I would have saw Arenado, and I would have easily just touched him and then thrown to first. But you’re playing infield in, you’ve got to go home. I was on the ground, and from my knees it was a little tough. So once I got up it was going to be 50/50. I think even less than 50/50.”

The Padres, who had failed to get Fernando Tatis Jr. home after a one-out double in the third inning, began the fourth inning with singles by Jackson Merrill and Bogaerts. But on Gavin Sheets’ fly ball to right field, which easily moved Merrill to third, Bogaerts chose to tag up and ran into an out.

“Bad read,” Bogaerts said. “I saw it up. … I was surprised (the throw from right fielder Jordan Walker) landed right at the second baseman.”

Instead of runners at the corners with one out, the Padres had a runner at third with two outs. And the inning ended on Cronenworth’s strikeout.

The Cardinals got their first hit and two more runs off Pivetta in the bottom of the fourth.

After walking Contreras to start the inning, Pivetta bounced a first-pitch curveball that got past Díaz but stopped close enough that Contreras stopped on his way from second to third base. But Diaz, who had looked at Contreras while he was still running, was oblivious to the play he could have made as he slowly stooped to pick up the ball.

Two pitches later, Winn doubled to score both runners. Only one would have likely scored had Díaz prevented Contreras from advancing.

The Padres were not able to combat all this despite the fact they had 11 hits, including four to start innings. Because none of those hits came in their eight at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“All the hits are great,” Cronenworth said. “The biggest thing is them getting hits with runners in scoring position. That’s the difference.”