D-backs 'out-hit, out-pitched, out-coached' in loss to Padres

PHOENIX -- When the runs come for the D-backs, they come in bunches.

Opening Day when they scored 14 runs in the third inning and 16 overall. Or April 16 against the Cubs when they plated 12 or April 19 when they got the Giants for 17 runs. Their latest double-digit run game was April 23 against the Cardinals when they scored 14.

They were still below .500 at that time because of the valleys in between the highs, but lately, that big explosion of runs has not happened, as Arizona has scored just 15 runs over eight games.

Friday night was another struggle for the offense as Dylan Cease, the Padres starter, held the D-backs to just three hits in a 7-1 loss, their seventh loss in their last eight games.

"We got beat tonight," D-backs manager Torey Lovullo said. "We got out-managed, we got out-pitched, we got out-hit, we got out-coached. We got to find a way to get the job done and go out there and play our type of baseball. That's the bottom line. We're grinding away at it. We're trying. Sometimes, we get results. Sometimes we don't."

There's no shame in losing to someone like Cease, one of the best pitchers in the league. The D-backs did face some tough pitching in their recent series with the Dodgers and Mariners, but that's not an excuse that Lovullo wants to use.

"[Cease] just beat us with a real aggressive fastball at the top of the zone and a slider that was really effective," Lovullo said. "And we knew that. We game planned for it. We were aware of the ability for him to back spin fastballs that rise in the strike zone. So we'll tip our cap to him. I don't want to take any credit away from him. But to get to where [we want to] go, we got to find a way to beat a guy like this. And we have and I know we can and we will."

The D-backs never really threatened in this one. They got a two-out double from Ketel Marte in the first inning and then a double and single to lead off the fifth to score their only run.

After that, though, Cease and the Padres bullpen retired the final 14 hitters that came to the plate.

Arizona starter Slade Cecconi retired the first nine San Diego hitters in order before things fell apart for him in the fourth.

Cecconi made a pair of mistakes that led to back-to-back homers from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jake Cronenworth, but Lovullo also pointed to his offense as to why Cecconi may have struggled that inning.

After Cecconi pitched a 1-2-3 inning in the third, he went back to the dugout and didn't get to rest much. That's because the first two batters in the bottom of the third made outs on the first pitches they saw, and Cease needed just seven pitches to get through the frame.

That meant Cecconi had little time to catch his breath on the bench.

"I think there's a correlation, and this is a coaching thought I've been sitting in a dugout for a long time," Lovullo said. "We made two outs on two pitches in the bottom of the third and the entire length of Slade's rest including the time in between innings was probably about five minutes. So even though he was cruising, it was a quick hurry up offense to get back out there. So those are the little things that bother me and we got to be better at."