SD 0, SF 6: IPK slammed, Lineup blanked

Games like yesterday's late-night extra-inning tooth-and-nail victory can act as a little glimmer of happiness. Especially in the middle of slumps. Games like tonight's can take that happiness, crush it into a little cube, and launch it into the sun. Today's 7 o'clock skirmish against the Giants was nothing but a straight up bummer.

Ian Kennedy, following two straight games of almost identical 1-run starts, accomplished the same feat tonight. Only, his earned run was tailed by 5 other unearned runs, 4 of them in the form of a Buster Posey grand slam. IPK wasn't getting any favorable calls tonight, as all of the good ones were spent on the Giants, and in 5 hits and 4 walks the Giants beat Kennedy up real quick with their 6-0 lead.

That lead proved to be insurmountable for the Padres lineup, topped by Matt Kemp in his first leadoff appearance since 2010.

Pat Murphy on batting Matt Kemp leadoff: "It may sound unconventional, but that's what we're doing." http://t.co/VvKRNlBwZ6

— U-T Padres (@UTPadres) June 25, 2015

It was an attempt by interim manager (and hunky umpire-bully) Pat Murphy to mix up the bag of currently-stale Padres trail mix. The effort didn't do much, as seven strikeouts and 0 runs came out of it. The Friars went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position tonight, and blew a few opportunities with runners only 90 feet away from the plate. So what's the good news?

Well, Marcos Mateo made his Padres debut with a scoreless 2-strikeout inning. Kevin Quackenbush also proved to not let the night blow wide open, with a scoreless inning of his own. Yonder Alonso continues to produce by going 1-3 with a walk tonight. Justin Upton woke up a little, going 2-4 with a double, and continues to add to his stolen base collection. There was also a real cute Ian Kennedy double in the 5th with one out.

It's pretty tough to get pumped up during a blowout. But hell, it's still barely July. We've got BIg Game James taking the mound tomorrow with a good chance of taking the series for the Padres with him back to Petco Park to help the Friars gear up against the Diamondbacks at home. Keep the gosh darn faith.

Christopher Hondros and I ran the game thread today, but there's only one rec king. (Hint: it's me.)