ANAHEIM -- The Padres don’t want to be reckless on the bases. But they certainly want to be aggressive. Sometimes that’s a fine line to walk.

In their 2-1 loss to the Angels on Monday night at Angel Stadium, the Padres again got all they could have asked for from knuckleballer Matt Waldron. They got Manny Machado’s first home run in 99 at-bats, snapping the longest drought of his career.

But at two crucial junctures, they ran into key outs on the basepaths -- outs that blurred the line between reckless and aggressive. In the second inning, Ha-Seong Kim was thrown out at third base trying to stretch a double. In the fifth, Jurickson Profar was nailed at the plate, trying to score on Fernando Tatis Jr.’s double.

As ever, manager Mike Shildt came to the defense of his team in the aftermath.

“We don't want to just run to run,” Shildt said. “We've run intelligently, aggressively. We want to be smart with our aggression. … I am confident that our aggression pays off for this team. It's a mindset. We do a lot of really good things. When it doesn't work, it can sting. But, man, we've got to appreciate when it does.”

On Monday, it stung.

A day ago, the Padres were on the verge of moving four games over .500 for the first time, one inning away in Kansas City from their first sweep of the season. They dropped that game in the ninth, then lost a game Monday in which they squandered chances galore against a last-place team.

There were other factors that contributed to the loss. The Padres went hitless with men in scoring position. They failed to execute where their opponent thrived. Twice, the Angels used small ball to score, including the go-ahead run on Luis Guillorme’s sacrifice fly in the eighth.

Still, on a night of thin margins, the game swung away from the Padres on the basepaths. And while they didn’t love the results, they seemed to be OK with the process.

“We’ve got to continue doing that,” Machado said. “That’s part of our game. You win some, you lose some. At the end of the day, there’s a lot that comes from it. We’re going to continue to do it. I think that’s our motto -- we’re going to put the pressure on the defense to make that good throw.”

The Angels did. Twice.

“The executions of relays, making plays and just playing solid defense -- well executed,” said Angels manager Ron Washington. “Couldn't have drew it up any better.”

For a split second, Kim’s aggression seemed sensible enough. Angels left fielder Taylor Ward misplayed the baseball in the corner. Seeing a bobble, Kim broke for third with one out. But Zach Neto’s relay beat him with room to spare, and the Padres didn’t score in the frame.

The play at the plate in the sixth loomed even larger. With the game tied, Tatis doubled into the same corner. Ward threw to Neto, who fired a one-hop strike to nab Profar. It was an aggressive send by third-base coach Tim Leiper. Had Profar held at third base, the Padres would’ve had two in scoring position for a suddenly red-hot Machado with one out.

Of course, the Angels almost certainly would’ve walked Machado. (They did so twice on Monday.) And there’s no guarantee Donovan Solano and Jake Cronenworth would have plated those runs. (In a similar situation in the eighth, they did not.)

In the end, Shildt didn’t exactly excuse the baserunning. He didn’t explicitly back the decisions by Kim and Leiper. But he wasn’t going to call them out, either.

“The only thing that we're going to have trouble with is if you're not aggressive, if you don't err on the side of aggression,” Shildt said.

Without a particularly fast lineup, the Padres have been relatively aggressive all year. They entered Monday tied for ninth in their percentage of extra bases taken. Per Statcast, they entered the game ranked sixth in the Majors with 3 “runner runs” which takes into account how often a team advances against the runs it might lose by not doing so.

“What’s the saying -- the juice and the squeeze?” Shildt said. “We're getting more juice than the squeeze.”

Shildt paused and cracked a smile, uncertain of his metaphor.

“Anyway,” he continued, “we're getting productivity overall. I love the mindset of the club as an aggressive club.”

Even if it cost them on Monday.