Missed Opportunities Sink Padres Against Cubs

The woes with runners in scoring position and less than two outs continued yesterday for the Padres.  In all, the

team was 1 for 12 with runners in scoring position, but the most glaring opportunity wasted came in the eighth inning.  Will Venable followed Andy Parrino‘s single with an RBI triple.  There were no outs.  The Padres failed to bring Venable home and tie the game.

Carlos Quentin continued his welcome party.  He went 3 for 4 with a home run, a double, and a single.  He became yet another player on the long list of those to complete 3/4 of the cycle.  Quentin now has four hits in his first eight at-bats.  Unfortunately, his additional offense has failed to end the Padres losing.  San Diego’s current skid now sits at five games.

Eric Stults suffered his first Padres loss.  He started strong, not allowing a run over the first four innings, but eventually gave up four runs in 6 1/3 innings of work.  He gave up seven hits and struck out just one.

San Diego’s loss drops them to 17-34, worst in all of baseball.  The Cubs, in this series, have leapfrogged the Padres, and the Twins have the same winning percentage but two less losses.  The futility can be summed up by an inability to come up with clutch hits.

In the fifth innings, Everth Cabrera doubled, but was left at second base.  In the seventh the Padres scored to cut the Cubs lead to 3-2 and had runners at first and second with one out.  They failed to push across another run.  Then there was that fateful eighth inning.  Will Venable drove in Andy Parrino to bring the Padres to within one run again.  He was standing at third – just 90 feet from tying the game – with no outs.  Yet, San Diego once again couldn’t send the runner home.

The Padres will try to change their luck in the conclusion of the Cubs series and the conclusion of the road trip today.  Anthony Bass will face Ryan Dempster at 11:20 PT.