Saturday may have represented the calm before the storm for San Diego, but the gloom settled in early for the Padres, who dropped both games of a doubleheader at Petco Park.
The Diamondbacks prevailed in the twin bill, winning the first game 6-4 and the follow-up 8-1.
The Padres, like the Dodgers and the Angels, all re-scheduled their Sunday games, playing doubleheaders Saturday ahead of Hurricane Hilary’s arrival in Southern California.
And both those teams fared better, with the Dodgers sweeping the two games from the Marlins and the Angels splitting their pair with the Rays.
The Padres only could win one of the four games against Arizona, which is also fighting to snag a wild-card spot. The Friars, in fact, lost five of their seven games against the Diamondbacks in the past week, leaving Cincinnati, Florida and Arizona in a far better position in the wild-card chase.
And the Mets, winners of four in a row, gained ground on them too.
The Padres played from behind in both games. Manny Machado had two home runs in the afternoon game, but both were solo shots and not enough to bridge the gap.
A grand slam in the ninth would have been more than enough, but Juan Soto’s shot in the bottom of the frame only reached the warning track where left fielder Lourdes Gurriel reeled it in.
But in the late game, no one could catch up to the ball hit by catcher Gabriel Moreno.
Yu Darvish had given up four runs in five innings of work, and Arizona put the game out of reach in the seventh inning with a grand slam by Moreno off Nick Martinez.
San Diego’s one murmur of protest? A Xander Bogaerts solo shot in the fifth.
Manager Bob Melvin summed up the doubleheader, telling MLB.com, it was part of a “long, miserable day” in which Arizona “completely outplayed us.”
The Marlins are set to arrive Monday to begin the final series of the home stand, but baseball officials will make a determination about the 6:40 p.m. game based “on the track and timing of the storm,” the Padres said in a statement.
