Padres hit 'rough stretch' at wrong time

LOS ANGELES -- First, Yu Darvish hung a slider that Freddie Freeman launched into the right-field seats. Two pitches later, Darvish hung another, and Will Smith sent it to Dodger Stadium’s right-field pavilion. Three pitches after that, Justin Turner turned around a Darvish fastball for another solo homer, this one to left field.

And, just like that, in the span of six pitches in the first inning on Saturday, the Dodgers had accounted for as many home runs as the Padres have in their last eight games. Looking for the biggest reason for the gap between these two National League West rivals? Look no further than the power discrepancy.

• Déjà move? Tatis to outfield on the table again

The Dodgers widened that NL West gap by another game with a 7-2 victory, their ninth straight over the Padres in Los Angeles and 14 in the teams’ past 15 matchups overall. Suddenly, San Diego finds itself 4 1/2 games back in the division and a whopping six games back in the loss column.

“Honestly, I feel like right now, it’s just a battle of home runs,” said Padres slugger Luke Voit. “It’s literally solo home runs. I don’t know. I mean, we’re just as good as these guys. Obviously we’re fighting the injury bug with some of the guys … but that’s just an excuse.”

No matter how things unfolded this weekend, the Padres’ first half can only be considered a success. They’re 12 games over .500, despite injuries to superstars and role players alike. But San Diego will reach the 81-game mark on Sunday -- the true halfway point of the season. Amid a series like this one, the second-half outlook no longer looks quite so rosy.

In three games this weekend, the Padres have scored four runs. After hanging with the Dodgers in the standings for most of the first three months, they’ve looked second-best.

“It’s just a rough stretch right now,” said Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth. “It’s one of those points in the season that every team goes through. We just hope to minimalize that and put it behind us.”

There are mitigating factors, of course. Manny Machado, who sustained a gruesome looking left ankle sprain less than two weeks ago, probably isn’t back to full strength. Fernando Tatis Jr. remains on the sideline with a fractured wrist (and it’s still unclear when -- and at what position -- he’ll be back). Wil Myers is sidelined, too.

“We’re all big leaguers,” Voit said. “We’ve still got to perform and get the job done. … We need to put pressure on the pitcher, and, hopefully, by doing that, he’ll make more mistakes and we can get that two-run double, three-run homer, that kind of thing.”

Indeed, the Padres need to find more pop somewhere. Their 66 home runs this season rank 24th in the Majors. They’ve struggled in particular against quality opposition, entering play Saturday with a .331 slugging percentage against teams with winning records -- 28th in the Majors in that department.

If there’s a positive to come out of the Padres’ struggles this weekend, perhaps it’s this: How can there be any doubt what they need at the Trade Deadline? This is a roster with a deep pitching staff, a solid defense and a pair of superstars on the left side of the infield. But it’s also a roster crying out for a bit more thump.

“These last two weeks we’ve been scuffling -- mostly offensively; our pitching’s been doing really well,” Voit said. “We’ve just got to hit the reset button. One, two runs, it feels like it’s been like that for a while. … It feels like we’re fighting from behind.”

They were on Saturday. After the Dodgers’ three-homer first, Darvish settled in to pitch six innings in which he allowed five runs, no small feat considering the way his afternoon began. Darvish’s effort helped save a Padres bullpen that is operating a man short, while the team has employed a six-man rotation.

But the Padres never seriously threatened offensively. On top of that, their defense was surprisingly shoddy, too. José Azocar, generally steady as a defense-first outfielder, misplayed two routine fly balls in right field. As if the Dodgers needed the help.

Finally, with the Padres trailing 7-1 in the eighth, Voit got a hold of a Reyes Moronta fastball, and sent a towering home run a dozen rows deep in left-center field. He joined Trent Grisham (Friday) and Nomar Mazara (Tuesday) as the only Padres to homer in the past eight games.

Simply put, the Padres need more where that came from. Voit is a candidate to provide it. A healthy Tatis, Machado and Myers could do so as well. But the Trade Deadline looms only a month away, and if it wasn’t already clear what the Padres should be searching for, it certainly should be after a weekend like this one.