Padres drop crucial finale behind uncharacteristic outing from Snell

TORONTO -- All in all, the Padres’ trip to Toronto this week should’ve been a positive one. They won two of three games. They welcomed Robert Suarez and Luis Campusano back from injuries. They gained ground in the NL Wild Card race.

But here’s a harsh truth about the hole the Padres have dug for themselves this season: Marginal gains aren’t going to be good enough. The gap in the playoff race has grown too wide to squander opportunities.

Which made the Padres' 4-0 loss to the Blue Jays on Thursday afternoon at Rogers Centre all the more disappointing. San Diego had ace Blake Snell on the mound and a chance to notch its first road sweep of the season.

Instead, Snell labored across five innings of one-run ball with a whopping seven walks. The bullpen unraveled late. And the offense went stagnant, finishing 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, while hitting into four double plays.

“You feel like you have to win every game,” said shortstop Xander Bogaerts, whose three hits brought him to 1,500 for his career. “But today was a very winnable game, and that’s when it hurts a little bit more.”

Viewed in one light, it was still a series victory on the road against a bona fide playoff contender. Viewed in another, the series finale offered a chance for San Diego to gain ground in the playoff hunt, after losses by San Francisco, Philadelphia and Arizona -- a chance wasted.

The Padres are slowly running out of time to trim that Wild Card deficit -- a gap of 6 1/2 games to the Marlins and Phillies. More urgently, San Diego is also running out of time to assert itself as a buyer ahead of the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline.

Speaking of that Deadline, Snell figures to be one of the most fascinating names to watch over the next two weeks. He’s set to become a free agent after the season and has been the best pitcher in baseball for two months. But on Thursday afternoon, Snell was nowhere near his dominant best.

“I just need to be more in control of the zone and I’ll be fine,” Snell said. “My stuff’s good. I like where it’s at. I just can’t try to be too fine. Just get it in the zone, attack and I’ll be good.”

Lately, that’s been quite a formula for Snell. He’s posted a 0.71 ERA over the past two calendar months, a span of 11 starts. Snell’s seven walks in Toronto tied a career high -- yet, somehow, he managed to limit the damage to one run.

In the process, Snell became the first Padres pitcher to walk seven in an outing in which he allowed one run or fewer since Oliver Pérez in 2003.

“He was Houdini,” said manager Bob Melvin. “Got four strikeouts -- all big when he needed to get them -- and somehow pitched out of it.”

The Padres would prefer not to entertain the thought of dealing Snell at all. They’d like to entrench themselves so squarely as buyers that rather than talk of trading Snell, they’re talking about how to bolster their already excellent rotation behind him.

But the standings tell a different story. Entering play Thursday, FanGraphs had pegged the Padres’ playoff odds at 30.2 percent. Simply put: They need to win games like this one.

“It would’ve been a big win for us today,” Melvin said. “We had some opportunities. We had some situational at-bats that could’ve impacted the game. … Gave up a few runs late and just couldn’t muster anything.”

Indeed, the Padres put two men aboard in the second, fourth, sixth and eighth innings -- and came up empty each time. Their best chance came in the eighth, trailing by two runs. Fernando Tatis Jr. led off with a single and Juan Soto followed by working a walk, putting the tying runs on board for a red-hot Manny Machado and Bogaerts, who had already racked up three hits.

But Machado struck out and Bogaerts hit a hard grounder to third base, an easy double-play ball.

So Bogaerts is stuck on 1,500 career hits for at least one more day. Not that he’s counting. (Seriously, he had no idea he’d reached the milestone until afterward.)

“I knew I was close,” Bogaerts said. “I didn’t know exactly how many I was away. Hopefully I get more -- 1,500 more would be a nice career, for sure.”