DETROIT -- The way Tigers manager A.J. Hinch talked about Matt Manning on Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park, it was almost like Hinch was looking into the future.

“On the baseball field, I think, when you have a pretty good idea where the ball’s going, you have a pretty good idea of what you’re supposed to be throwing the most,” Hinch said. “And then you go out and execute and get positive results, it leads to a good mental space.”

Manning entered Saturday’s 14-3 loss to the Padres in a pretty good mental space, having gone 2-0 with a 2.74 ERA in four starts since his return from a fractured right foot. His confidence never wavered, not even when he threw eight consecutive balls to open the game and bring up Juan Soto, who’d clobbered a pair of mammoth homers the night before.

The righty’s first strike -- a four-seamer down the middle that Soto took -- drew a cheer from the crowd. Soto fouled off Manning’s second and third pitches. A ball in the dirt and a slider that cruised too far inside brought the count back to even before Soto grounded an elevated fastball into a double play.

Manning didn’t flinch against cleanup hitter Manny Machado either, inducing a swinging strike and two foul balls around a slider in the dirt before landing a four-seamer that Machado watched go by to end the inning.

“He is pitching with a lot of confidence,” Hinch said. “I think he carries himself at this level now with the demeanor that kind of oozes ‘Major League pitcher,’ and that's important for a young pitcher to develop that.”

Manning faced just one batter over the minimum in the second inning, allowing only a two-out single to Luis Campusano, and seemed well on his way to another sharp outing. Meanwhile, Jake Rogers, his batterymate, blasted a 109.1 mph double into right-center field to give the Tigers a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the same frame. Everything was unfolding according to plan.

“I thought my slider got a little better; I started locating more down in the zone,” Manning said. “I wasn’t trying to get ahead and guiding my fastball to some of those righties; [I] just really started attacking, getting ahead, and it was easy from that point.”

Right about then, though, Manning realized with no small frustration that he could control his approach, his attitude and his pitches, and even, to some extent, how San Diego reacted to all of that.

What he could not control, no matter his confidence level, was the weather.

He was facing Alfonso Rivas when a message appeared on the scoreboard asking fans to seek shelter on the concourse. Still, Manning dispatched Rivas on three pitches to end the inning despite the distraction caused by 31,974 fans streaming from their seats. The rain began shortly afterward, but the game continued until Rogers’ two-out double in the bottom of the inning.

As the throw came in from Rogers’ knock, home plate umpire Todd Tichenor approached home plate with his hands raised to signal he was stopping the game.

An ensuing 1-hour, 24-minute delay was enough to scrap any hope of Manning returning to action. It left the Tigers with an unintentional bullpen day, and though they came out swinging -- Zack Short’s two-run single on the first play out of the break gave the Tigers a 3-0 lead -- not much went right after that.

“I wish I could have gone back out there, because I thought I was starting to do some really good things,” Manning said. “I could’ve had a good game against them.”

Mason Englert took over for Manning to start the third. He was pitching on five days of rest and gave the Tigers 60 pitches and 2 1/3 innings in relief, but San Diego had his number, scoring nine runs on 10 hits to break the game wide open.

The intention wasn’t to bury Englert but to preserve the bullpen as much as possible ahead of Alex Faedo’s return from Triple-A Toledo in Sunday’s series finale.

The struggle also didn’t just lie with Englert: Each reliever who entered from Detroit’s largely dependable bullpen allowed at least one run, including Brendan White (1 ER, 1 2/3 IP), Chasen Shreve (1 ER, 1 IP) and José Cisnero (3 ER, 1 IP). Only Short, entering in the ninth for his third pitching appearance of the season, managed to hold the Padres scoreless.