MINNEAPOLIS — A trip to the unseasonably warm Northwest and unseasonably cool Midwest ended as poorly as it began.
Unseasonably poorly.
The Padres, who are nearing the point in the season where they would like to be playing their best, lost 7-2 to the Twins on Sunday, as a parade of relievers allowed runs and a parade of hitters made outs with runners in scoring position.
“It wasn’t good,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “… I mean, I’m disappointed. I don’t know how else to say it. Got down and just couldn’t scratch back.”
The Padres began the week in Seattle, where they lost two of three to the Mariners, who are in playoff position in the American League. The series here, which began a stretch of nine consecutive games against teams with losing records, went the same.
With the Dodgers winning their game against the Diamondbacks, the Padres fell back to two games behind the Dodgers in the National League West after gaining a game on Saturday. The Padres sit in the second of three NL wild-card spots, and the teams in front of them (Cubs) and behind them (Mets) lost Sunday as well.
“We’re in a perfect spot right now,” Manny Machado said. “I think we’re in a good spot as a team, where the standings are. With that being said — we had a tough two- or three-week stretch; we kind of just got over the hump — we gotta get back to it and play some good baseball.”
The Padres, who have lost three of their past five series and gone 7-9 in that span, will begin the final calendar month of the regular season on Monday at Petco Park against the Orioles, who will arrive in San Diego with the second-worst record (61-76) in the AL.
Whatever that is worth, considering the Twins (62-75) snapped a five-series losing streak against the Padres.
Shildt’s plan to get through Sunday’s game using relief pitchers began extremely well, as David Morgan worked two scoreless innings.
But the next three Padres relievers had a hand in the Twins building a 6-0 lead in a span of three innings while the Padres’ offense did nothing with a couple early opportunities and were blanked for seven innings by Twins starter Joe Ryan.
Kyle Hart, called up Sunday, made it through the seven batters he was supposed to face but ended up getting just four outs and being charged with three runs.
His one-out walk to No. 9 hitter Austin Martin was followed by Byron Buxton launching a ball to the flower beds above the left field wall to put the Twins up 2-0.
The Padres would get their last chance that really mattered against Ryan in the top of the fourth.
Machado reached on an error, and Ryan O’Hearn’s single gave the Padres runners at first and second with no outs. But Machado and O’Hearn were still at first and second when the inning ended when Ryan struck out Ramón Laureano, Gavin Sheets and Jake Cronenworth in succession.
The Padres had also failed to get Sheets home from second base after his one-out double in the second inning.
“His fastball was good today,” Machado said of Ryan, whose fastball averaged 95 mph Sunday, up 1.3 mph from his season average. “He was pounding the zone. Pitching fastballs right by us. We couldn’t hit it the other way. We had some opportunities to score early. We had runners in scoring position. We didn’t. He just blew fastballs by us. We just couldn’t get to it.”
By the time the Padres threatened again, just two innings later, they trailed by six runs.
Hart began the bottom of the fourth by hitting Luke Keashall with an 0-2 fastball. After getting an out, Hart was replaced by Jeremiah Estrada.
But Shildt’s intention to keep the game close by employing one of his high-leverage relievers did not go to plan.
Estrada walked the first batter he faced to get Keaschall to second base, and a single by Royce Lewis made it 3-0.
With five innings to go and just four high-leverage arms left, Shildt turned to Wandy Peralta to start the fifth.
Three runs scored — on three hits, a walk, a hit batter and a sacrifice fly — before Peralta got his third out.
A one-out walk by Machado and two-out single by Laureano in the bottom of the sixth fizzled on a flyout by Sheets.
And after Yuki Matsui worked a 1-2-3 sixth inning to stem the Twins’ three-inning run flow, Cronenworth led off the seventh with a double. But Ryan again escaped by getting a groundout from Jose Iglesias and striking out Freddy Fermin and Fernando Tatis Jr.
Ryan, who was an All-Star this season, finished seven innings for the first time in 2025 on a season-high 104 pitches.
“I’ve got a lot of at-bats against him, and that was as good as I’ve seen him,” said Sheets, who played with the White Sox in the same division as the Twins the past four seasons. “His velo was up. Obviously he has a really good fastball, and he used it today in all situations and attacked the zone. And he kept the momentum on their side, which in a game like today, that was huge.”
Ryan left just two innings to cover for a Twins bullpen that had been sold for parts at the trade deadline.
And down 7-0 after the Twins added on against Matsui in the seventh, the Padres substituted liberally.
They prevented the shutout with two runs off Michael Tonkin in the ninth inning.
“We’ve got to get back after it,” Sheets said. “It will be good to get back home. Obviously, we play well at home. … So we gotta put this behind us and get right back on track.”
Originally Published: