SAN DIEGO — Jurickson Profar slammed his bat down in the batters box at the end of the first inning, a show of contempt after plate umpire Ramon De Jesus had rung him up on an inside fastball. The helmet followed. Profar's back was turned to De Jesus as he began to remove his elbow guard when the plate umpire pointed at the equipment in the dirt and tossed the left fielder from the game, triggering a heated exchange as Padres manager Mike Shildt raced to plate to defend Profar.

It wasn't the last the Padres were heard from Saturday night.

Their bites just weren't as big as all that barking.

Rookie Graham Pauley's first-inning error dug Randy Vásquez into an early hole in his 2024 debut and the offense's cold spell continued in a 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in front of a sellout crowd of 43,272, the Padres' third loss in a row to drop them a game below .500.

"Listen, we've definitely put ourselves in holes," Shildt said. "We haven't helped ourselves. We haven't been in enough positive counts consistently and we haven't played clean enough consistently. But I love the club. I love this club a ton. I love the fight. We just have to be little bit cleaner."

The first loss in that string was a shutout to end a chest-thumping road trip. But the Padres managed just Fernando Tatis Jr.'s solo home run in a loss on Friday and have just three runs in their last 20 innings after going 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position in handing the series win to the Blue Jays.

Xander Bogaerts' RBI groundout in the seventh ensured they would not be blanked a second time this week and Ha-Seong Kim added an RBI single in the eighth, but that was after Jose Berrios sidestepped the Padres with six shutout innings. He struck out five, scattered five hits and two walks and left the bases loaded in his second-to-last last inning when Manny Machado popped out on a first-pitch sinker that ran in on his hands.

Earlier in the inning, Tatis sent a ball to the warning track that right fielder George Springer ran down in front of the wall.

The Padres went down in order in the sixth inning and again in the ninth after the Blue Jays pushed across an insurance run against left-hander Yuki Matsui, Toronto's first run since the second inning.

Profar's ejection came on the heels of stranding the first two runners of the game, as Jake Cronenworth had walked with two outs in the first inning and Machado singled to push their first runner into scoring position. But De Jesus called out Profar looking at a third strike that may or may not have nipped the inside black of the plate.

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