SAN DIEGO -- Rockies right-hander José Ureña’s uncharacteristically rushed pitching mechanics led to the type of loss -- 8-4 to the Padres on Saturday night at Petco Park -- that the team is trying to avoid this year.

Ureña walked four while throwing a whopping 71 pitches in 2 1/3 innings. To further drive home manager Bud Black’s point that the pitching staff must trim walks, reliever Dinelson Lamet walked the first two hitters of the eighth inning and watched them score on Juan Soto’s game-clinching single.

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“The walks really hurt us tonight,” Black said. “It’s something that we’ve stressed to our pitchers from Day 1 of Spring Training. They’re aware of it. Tonight, the third game of the year, it didn’t happen for us.

“Over the long haul, we have to rectify what happened tonight and not have it happen again.”

Black began Spring Training by challenging the pitchers. Before last season, he touted the pitching -- especially the starters -- as a strength. However, Rockies starters finished with a 5.22 ERA, with their 294 walks in 859 2/3 innings a big part of the problem.

The Rockies won the first two games at Petco Park as Germán Márquez and Kyle Freeland walked just one in 12 innings. Saturday, the Rockies hope, must be an aberration. That goes for Ureña -- and, for that matter, Lamet, who pitched well in the season-opening victory but whose troubles in the eighth inning Saturday left C.J. Cron’s third homer of the season (a two-run, 435-foot drive in the sixth) mere Statcast trivia.

The Rockies believe they made a valuable find in Ureña, 31, whose career production with four teams (Marlins, Tigers, Brewers and Rockies) hasn’t equaled what is possible out of a right arm capable of high velocity and heavy sink.

Miscast as a reliever at the start of last season before the Brewers released him, Ureña joined the Rockies and went 3-8 with a 5.14 ERA in 17 starts. He showed enough to earn a one-year contract with a $3.5 million guarantee (including a $500,000 buyout on a 2024 club option worth $4 million). With the Rockies, he walked 3.8 per nine innings.

But he walked four in three innings in his last Cactus League start, on Monday against the Brewers in what was considered a blip. Saturday was at least an extended blip -- one the Rockies hope is not a sign of a problem.

“I got ahead a couple of times in the count, but I wasn’t able to finish with my two-seam [fastball] and have good command,” Ureña said.

Black spotted a correctable issue.

“He looked a little quicker than, in my mind, I see his delivery,” Black said. “It just looked fast. He wasn’t in timing. It affected his release point.”

Ureña is confident walks won’t become a characteristic.

“I feel behind, but I’ve got to get back on track,” he said. “I’ve got to put my mind right, execute my pitch and finish it the way I want.”