SAN DIEGO -- All things considered, Astros right-hander Spencer Arrighetti was able to walk away from the Petco Park mound on Monday night feeling pretty good about the way he dug in and battled against a Padres lineup that’s among baseball’s best.

The Padres made sure nothing came easy for the rookie, who needed 102 pitches -- his second-highest pitch total this year -- to complete five cumbersome innings. Arrighetti gave up eight hits and two runs, but that was enough for San Diego to send the Astros to a 3-1 loss, snapping Houston’s three-game winning streak.

The Astros are four games ahead of the second-place Mariners atop the American League West with 12 games remaining.

“I have to just keep giving the team a chance,” Arrighetti said. “I feel like that’s what I made the last couple of months about, and it’s felt a lot better. I can walk away from it knowing that I did everything I could for the team and not for me, and I feel like that’s been the best development this year is shifting my mind a little bit towards trying to win games. I feel like I want to continue to do that.”

Arrighetti gave up back-to-back doubles to Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado with two outs in the first inning, and Jackson Merrill led off the fourth with a home run to center field to put the Padres ahead, 2-0. But nothing came easy on this day.

Arrighetti had only 11 whiffs from among 58 Padres swings, with San Diego fouling off 29 pitches. He threw a career-high 42 pitches with two strikes.

“That’s battling,” he said. “That’s awesome. They executed their plan, and I feel like I stayed with mine and I feel like I kind of grinded through those at-bats, even when they got long. It’s a tough one, for sure. It’s a really good team.”

Arrighetti pitched around a hit and a walk in the second inning and then got a strikeout-throw out double play to end the third. He didn’t allow a run after three consecutive singles in the fifth, thanks to left fielder Jason Heyward throwing out Luis Arraez at the plate.

“If he does that and he keeps in the game, we’re going to win some games,” Astros manager Joe Espada said. “That’s the stuff that we want to see out of our young guys. Even when you don’t have your great stuff, you figure out a way to get people out. He did that.”

Arrighetti’s second strikeout victim was Arraez, who swung through a 3-2 curveball for his first strikeout after 141 plate appearances without one. According to Elias, it was the longest streak since Juan Pierre reached 147 during the 2004 season.

“I respect that guy a lot and what he does is absolutely crazy in the game that we play today,” Arrighetti said. “It meant a lot to me, for sure. Hats off to him, too. He got me on the same pitch [on a fifth-inning single]. It’s not like I can just walk away feeling great. It wasn’t an 0-for-3. He still got me, too. It was a really cool moment for me, for sure. I was very aware of it.”

Arrighetti kept trying to go up and away to Arraez -- who's in line for his third straight batting title -- before sending a curveball in the dirt. The at-bat took nine pitches and had four foul balls.

“When guys don’t and miss a lot anyways, my job is kind of to give different looks,”Arrighetti said. “And, hopefully, one of them looks similar to the other and they miss. I feel like I was pretty good with what my attack plan was with him.”

The Astros scored a run in the eighth against reliever Tanner Scott to get within a run. Jose Altuve led off the inning with a double and scored on a Yordan Alvarez single, but the Astros stranded the potential tying run at third base. Profar finished his 4-for-4 day with a homer off Tayler Scott in the eighth.

“We got some people on base, and we couldn't get a big hit,” Espada said. “Spencer left some pitches out over the plate early in the game, and then he settled down and gave us a strong five innings. But they pitched us tough tonight. They did.”