The odds of sweeping a 4-game series are not great to begin with. Doing it against a 1st place team shrinks the margins even more. The Padres lived that reality on Sunday afternoon in a 6-2 loss to the Brewers that will go down as one of the more annoying setbacks of the season.
Not because they didn't finish the sweep. Because Milwaukee got their runs without really hitting the ball that hard.
Michael King got off to a great start. He struck out the side in the 1st inning and looked like he'd be in for a dominant day. But, in the 2nd inning, if he didn't have bad luck he wouldn't have had any luck at all. Willy Adames led off with a flare to centerfield that fell in between Ha-Seong Kim and Jackson Merrill, a 78-MPH single. Two batters later Joey Ortiz reached out and slapped a 64-MPH "liner" to left field just over Kim's head. Both hits came with two strikes and both were on pretty decent pitches by King.
The inning spiraled from there. Sal Frelick hit a ground ball through the left side for an RBI single and a 1-0 Brewers lead. After striking out Gary Sanchez for the 2nd out King got more soft contact ... and more frustration. Blake Perkins hit a pop-up down the left field line. He stood in the batter's box for a second thinking it was an out or a foul ball. Instead it floated in perfectly for a 2-RBI single that left the bat at 66 miles per hour.
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If any of those hits had been even a foot in a different direction King would have gotten out of the inning unscathed. By the time the dust had settled Milwaukee had five runs on the board and a 5-0 lead. King still went 6.0 innings, striking out eight. In the other five innings he was on the mound he only allowed four total baserunners.
Offensively, the Padres had trouble solving rookie Tobias Myers. The right-hander was cruising along until the 5th inning when San Diego mounted a 2-out rally. Ha-Seong Kim singled to centerfield and catcher Brett Sullivan, called up from Triple-A when Luis Campusano went on the Injured List with a thumb issue, dropped a brilliant bunt single down the 3rd base line to turn the lineup over and get to Luis Arraez.
A guy with a .370 average with runners in scoring position is not a bad thing to have at the top of your batting order. Arraez ripped a single to right to score Kim. The rally ended when Profar struck out on a nasty changeup from Myers to end the threat.
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Tom Cosgrove allowed a run in the 7th inning to make it 6-1. In the 8th the randomness of the game of baseball showed up again. With runners at the corners Manny Machado hit a line drive 96 MPH off the bat right at Perkins in centerfield for an out (on which Profar tagged and scored to make it 6-2). Merrill followed with a 105-MPH rocket to dead center that was caught at the wall for the final out of the inning.
Two balls that were hit hard to enough to be homers were outs. Milwaukee hit three balls soft enough to be outs that turned into knocks.
Still, the Padres take three of four from a pretty good ballclub and continue their homestand on Monday night when the start a 3-game set against the Washington Nationals with the red-hot Matt Waldron on the mound against Patrick Corbin.
