With Joey Lucchesi still on the disabled list and Bryan Mitchell and Robbie Erlin both having failed spectacularly as starting pitchers while being quite effective out of the bullpen, the Padres decided to do a little bullpenning on Sunday against the Dodgers.
If you’re unfamiliar with the phrase, bullpenning basically means using multiple pitchers and hopefully not having any of them go more than one time through the lineup. For seven innings it worked. The 8th was a disaster.
The Dodgers scored four times in the 8th to beat the Padres 6-1 and win their weekend series two games to one.
Matt Strahm got the start and threw two scoreless innings. Then Adam Cimber came on and got knocked around a bit. He allowed three straight hits, the last one an RBI single by Enrique Hernandez that scored pitcher Walker Buehler to put the Dodgers up 1-0. Justin Turner grounded into a double play that was almost a triple play but Chris Taylor slid in to home just ahead of a throw from 1st baseman Eric Hosmer to give L.A. a 2-0 lead.
Cimber tossed a scoreless 4th inning and then Kazuhisa Makita came on and was perfect. He faced nine hitters and retired them all. In the meantime the Padres got their only run of the game when catcher Raffy Lopez hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Freddy Galvis in the 5th inning. That was the only blemish on Buehler’s day. The prized rookie struck out eight Padres in 7.0 innings. He’s now thrown 13.0 innings against San Diego this year and given up just that one run.
Tyler Webb came on to throw the 8th inning and he just didn’t have it. Webb gave 2-run home runs to Max Muncy and Cody Bellinger to put the game completely out of reach.
San Diego finishes its 10-game road trip through Pittsburgh, Washington, and Los Angeles a respectable 5-5 before starting a homestand on Memorial Day afternoon with a 1:10 start against the Miami Marlins at Petco Park. Padres rookie Eric Lauer gets the start against Caleb Smith.
