San Diego Padres fall to Cincinnati Reds on Quantrill’s lone mistake

The San Diego Padres dropped to the Cincinnati Reds on Tuesday, but Cal Quantrill had an impressive stint going until one pitch spoiled his night.

The San Diego Padres snatched defeat from the jaws of victory again Tuesday evening, but this time it was just a stroke of bad luck.

The Padres lost to the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park following starting pitcher Cal Quantrill giving up a two-run home run to Freddy Galvis. That name should sound familiar; Galvis was a Padre last season, but signed with the Toronto Blue Jays in free agency.

The Blue Jays waived him this month and Galvis was picked up by the Reds just over a week ago, on Aug. 12. Now he’s delivered a 3-2 win against his former team.

Unlike many other Padres losses, though, it’s hard to get too angry about this one—because it was shaping up to be an impressive victory before that one unfortunate pitch.

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Before surrendering the dinger to Galvis, Cal Quantrill had only given up one run on five hits.

He finished up with nine strikeouts, and didn’t walk a single batter. So although he did take the loss (6-4), one can’t say that he didn’t give the game everything he had.

If there’s any criticism of Quantrill’s outing, it also belongs to Austin Hedges, as the trio allowed three stolen bases on the day. Hedges was also charged with a throwing error, his ninth of the season.

But the duo combined for a pretty great evening; the San Diego Padres offense just wasn’t able to muster enough offense after Galvis’ home run turned a 1-1 tie into a 3-1 deficit.

Though they did pick up a run in the eighth to narrow the margin to 3-2, their offensive statistics were disappointing at best.

The Friars went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position, and only racked up four hits during the entire game—which were split between Manny Machado and Josh Naylor.  Those two players represented all of their offense; everyone else went hitless against Reds starter Sonny Gray and four relievers.

With the loss, San Diego drops to 59-66, making them seven games under .500. They are now 23 games back in the National League West and eight games back of the NL Wild Card—ironically in a tie with Cincinnati.

The Padres will try to take the series when they finish with the Reds today. So far, they do have a winning record on this road trip; they’re 3-2 since Aug. 16. But in a season that’s been full of rough games, they can’t even seem to get a lot of good luck, either.

For complete coverage of the San Diego Padres’ 2019 season, continue following Friars on Base all season long.