Padres 2, Dodgers 4: Lucchesi knocked out early, Padres can’t catch up

The Pads couldn’t keep the fire of yesterday’s matchup against the Dodgers burning. There are only so many Eric Lauer-Dodgers matchups in a season. For the third game of the four-game home series against LA, the Padres faltered 4-2 from an ugly 3rd inning and a stagnant offense.

In terms of replicating last night’s win against the Dodgers, Joey Lucchesi went in the opposite direction. As opposed to an 8-inning outing, Lucchesi only lasted 4. Despite 4 strikeouts in his outing, the Dodgers had 6 of their 10 hits off Joey, scoring 3 earned runs (1 unearned from a rare throwing error from Freddy Galvis). He walked 1, and was out of the game by the 5th inning with 91 pitches thrown.

Phil Maton, Adam Cimber, and Phil Hughes threw some solid no-run relief, but Craig Stammen was tagged for 3 hits and a run in the 8th inning, putting the Dodgers up by 2 before the 9th inning arrived.

The Padres had two sparks of life in the 1st and 7th innings. Carlos Asuaje drove home Travis Jankowski (who had himself an impressive diving catch in center) with an RBI-double in the first, and Christian Villanueva cruelly smacked a line drive HR in the seventh, his 18th homer before All-Star break.

The Pads fell short today with 2 errors on the left side of the infield and struck out a gross 12 times. They’ll still get a chance to split the series with Tyson Ross taking the mound against Ross Stripling tomorrow.