Padres held down amid Tatis countdown

SAN DIEGO -- The best thing to say about the Padres' disheartening 8-1 loss to the Braves on Tuesday night at Petco Park is that they emerged from it healthy -- and even that fact was in some jeopardy for a hot second.

Xander Bogaerts -- the bright spot amid a San Diego lineup that has otherwise underwhelmed -- took a 98 mph Spencer Strider fastball off his left wrist in the fourth inning. Bogaerts has dealt with issues pertaining to that wrist before. He grimaced in pain, was evaluated by a trainer, then remained in the game. The way he tells it, he got lucky: The baseball hit the Velcro of his batting glove, where there’s a bit of extra padding.

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And that was about the extent of the good news for the Padres, who proceeded to lose a third straight game, the sixth in their last seven. Juan Soto’s eighth-inning RBI groundout helped narrowly avoid a third straight shutout loss -- which would’ve been a first for the franchise since April 2016, a distinctly different era of Padres baseball.

Strider was excellent, holding San Diego hitless over the first five innings before Soto’s single through the infield in the bottom of the sixth. The Padres could’ve chalked it up to a dominant showing from one of the sport’s best young pitchers. If it hadn’t felt so familiar, that is.

“You get tired at some point of tipping your hat to a pitcher, even though we’ve been facing some good ones,” said manager Bob Melvin. “We’re looking down the barrel of another shutout through seven innings. So I think maybe you start to press a little bit. … We’ve got to figure out something offensively.”

There may be a quick and easy fix, of course. Fernando Tatis Jr. is slated to return from his PED suspension on Thursday in Arizona. The Padres entered play Tuesday with MLB’s third-lowest offensive production out of their right fielders this season, according to wRC+. Tatis, who finished his Minor League rehab stint by going 11-for-16 with six homers in his last three games, should change that in an instant.

There’s also the belief that Tatis’ presence alone will lift a burden from the rest of the lineup. Soto reached base three times on Tuesday night in addition to his RBI groundout. But he’s mostly underperformed this season, as has Manny Machado and just about everyone else on the San Diego offense, save for Bogaerts and Nelson Cruz.

The Padres are quick to insist that Tatis won’t be a cure-all for their offensive struggles. But adding one of the sport’s most dynamic players certainly can’t hurt.

“Just his name, man,” Bogaerts said. “His name, his presence -- that goes a long way. … He could do a lot of different stuff. He’s dynamic. He’s really impressive. And we’ll get there.”

Opposite Strider, left-hander Blake Snell was solid enough Tuesday night, pitching five innings of two-run ball. He allowed a long home run to Sean Murphy in the fourth but was otherwise mostly effective against one of the sport’s toughest offenses. After a slow start to the season, it was a step in the right direction for Snell.

Not that he took much solace in it, on the wrong end of another loss, the Padres’ fourth in his four starts this season.

“We know we can score and shut people down, and we haven’t been doing that on both ends, so we’re definitely frustrated,” Snell said. “We know how good we are. We know how quick we can turn it around and be the team we know that we are. ...

“Yeah, it’s frustrating that we’re not getting the results. But we’ll put in the work and it’ll turn. We’re too talented.”

Said designated hitter Matt Carpenter: “Look, there’s no doubt in my mind that this group’s going to get hot, and it’ll be a fun stretch when it does. It’s not a matter of ‘if.’ It’s just a matter of ‘when.’”

So … when, exactly?

If it happened this weekend in the aftermath of Tatis’ return, would anybody be surprised?

“That’s hard to pin on one guy,” Melvin said. “But I think hopefully the combination of he and Joe [Musgrove, who will make his first start of the season on Saturday] gives us a little injection of some confidence. That’s the way the game goes sometimes.”