SAN DIEGO — The Padres built one of the best records in the major leagues by sizing up and wearing down starting pitchers.

Concurrently, they played virtually flawless defense and counted on a reliable group of relief pitchers to close out a number of remarkable comebacks.

Only one of those things happened Wednesday, and it only sort of happened and only for the shortest time.

The result was a 5-4 loss to the Cubs that was their second defeat in a row and meant they lost a series, neither of which had happened since March.

The losses the past two days, which dropped the Padres to 19-11 at, involved the bullpen allowing the game to get away and the Padres falling short after coming back.

The Cubs scored three runs in five innings off Matt Waldron.

The first of those was enabled by a fly ball going in and out of Jackson Merrill’s glove in the second inning. The other two came in the fourth inning when Matt Shaw’s two-out bunt single was followed by Pete Crow-Armstrong’s second home run in two days.

Padres batters were flummoxed by Cubs starter Jameson Taillon for most of his seven innings.

A stretch of three two-out plate appearances in the fifth inning were almost all that separated Taillon from perfection.

Taillon retired the first 14 batters he faced on 57 pitches. The Padres had hit two balls hard, both by Ty France.

What might have literally been Taillon’s first mistake — a sweeper just above the zone and down the middle — got hit to the lowest balcony fronting the Western Metal building by Miguel Andujar and began a relative cascade of poor pitches.

Jake Cronenworth followed with a walk on seven pitches. That was just the second time a Padres batter got to three balls against Taillon, who then missed on a cutter left up and over the middle on his second pitch to Nick Castellanos.

Castellanos did not miss, blasting his first home run with the Padres into the seats beyond left field to tie the game 3-3.

Taillon retired seven of the final eight batters he faced, allowing only Fernand Tatis Jr.’s dribbled single to the left side.

The Padres scored again after he left the game, but it was not enough because two of the Padres’ highest-leverage relievers, Adrian Morejón in the sixth and Jason Adam in the eighth, allowed the Cubs a run apiece.

Morejón replaced Waldron and allowed his run on a walk, a double and a groundout. After Bradgley Rodriguez finished off the sixth and worked a scoreless seventh, Adam surrendered a home run to Matt Shaw.

That came a day after a trio of relievers allowed a game the Padres had come back to tie 2-2 to get away in what became an 8-3 loss.

During a 17-4 run that preceded these two losses, the Padres had completed every comeback they made. Eight times, they erased a deficit and went on to win. The eighth of those was Monday in the series opener against the Cubs.

They had a good chance to even the game a second time in the bottom of the eighth when they loaded the bases with no outs on three walks by Corbin Martin.

But after Tatis’ sacrifice fly off Ben Brown, Manny Machado grounded into an inning-ending double play.

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