Padres miss chance as Astros take opener

SAN DIEGO -- The Padres survived a start by the biggest question mark remaining in their pitching rotation. The game was in the hands of one of the best bullpens in baseball.

The Padres were in position to ascend to the lead for the second National League Wild Card spot, a status they haven’t held since Aug. 19.

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Instead, the Padres are still looking up at the Reds after a 6-3 loss to the Astros on Friday night in the opener of a three-game series at Petco Park. Kyle Tucker hit a tiebreaking two-run home run off Emilio Pagán with two outs in the eighth inning to keep the Padres a half-game behind Cincinnati in the Wild Card race.

“We know what we have to do: We need to execute and play to our potential,” said starting pitcher Jake Arrieta, who came off the injured list to give the Padres five innings, perhaps erasing that question mark, if not quite replacing it with an exclamation mark.

“If we do that, we’ll be in a good position. The best thing about where we’re at is we still have an opportunity to accomplish everything these guys set out to accomplish in Spring Training.”

Arrieta, who had been sidelined with a left hamstring strain since his Padres debut on Aug. 18, induced only one swing and miss among his 64 pitches but otherwise hit his spots and got 15 called strikes.

Arrieta’s location was off on a sinker to Carlos Correa in the fourth inning, however. The right-hander left the pitch up in the strike zone, and Correa crushed it 429 feet to dead center field for a three-run home run.

Before and after that pitch, Arrieta bore little resemblance to the pitcher who lasted just 3 1/3 innings and allowed five runs at Coors Field in his Padres debut.

“For most of the night, I thought his ball was moving,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “His velo was good. I thought he had tremendous movement on the sinker. There were some good changeups in there. He threw extremely well. To give us five and get through the lineup twice the way he did, I thought it was an outstanding outing for him.”

Arrieta, 35, used the IL time to adjust his delivery. He went back to throwing more across his body to be more deceptive, an effective mechanic he had to junk after knee surgery in January 2019.

“The knee surgery created an issue where I had to be a bit more linear to the plate because of the pain and the torque in my knee,” Arrieta said. “But since that’s behind me, we’re able to utilize that a little bit more. Moving forward, that’s going to help tremendously. Helps hide the ball a little bit longer.”

The Padres, down 3-1 after Correa’s homer, fought back to tie it with a pinch-hit RBI double by Tommy Pham in the fifth inning and an RBI single down the right-field line by Austin Nola in the sixth. But they were unable to regain the lead and left the bases loaded in the seventh when Eric Hosmer struck out swinging on a fastball from lefty Blake Taylor that was above the strike zone.

Tingler started his two best hitters, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado, in the 1-2 spots in the lineup for only the second time this season -- and the first time since April 3 -- in an attempt to ignite an offense that has scored only 3.25 runs per game since Aug. 11, last in the Majors.

Tatis and Machado combined to reach base three times but scored no runs -- four fewer than the previous game in which they batted 1-2. In the three hole, Jake Cronenworth struck out three times in an 0-for-4 night. He’s in a 3-for-36 funk.

“Jake’s been, arguably, one of the two most consistent players we’ve had throughout the year,” Tingler said. “We’ve put a lot on Jake’s plate, shifting over to shortstop. … Jake’s one of the better ballplayers on the team. He’s been in the middle of a lot of good things. Even if he hasn’t been swinging it to his capabilities or as hot as he’s been, I’ve got as much confidence in Jake as about anybody on the team.”