Athletics jump on Michael King, Padres can't bounce back in series-ending loss

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on May 24, 2026

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — There is no supposed to in baseball.

The game doesn’t work that way. Most times this season, the San Diego Padres can be thankful for that.

They hit less often than any team, yet they have won more often than just a handful of teams.

On Sunday, though, the vagaries of the game worked against them and deprived them of a series sweep.

That and the fact they continued to make outs when a hit would matter most.

They lost 5-2 to the Athletics on a cool, cloudy afternoon at Petco Park when their No. 1 starter got battered around and they could not turn nine hits into much of anything.

The Athletics used an opener before handing the ball to struggling left-hander Jacob Lopez, who allowed one run over 4 2/3 innings and lowered his ERA to 5.73 in his best outing of the season.

Michael King, conversely, had his worst start and was gone before the fourth inning was finished with the Padres down 4-0.

The Padres, whose five comebacks from four runs down are most in the major leagues, could not manage another.

This time it wasn’t because the lightest-hitting team in the major leagues was impotent at the plate. They had more hits than in any of their previous five games.

That raised their MLB-worst batting average two points to .223. But none of those hits came with runners in scoring position.

They went 0 for 7 with men on second and/or third base Sunday, scoring only on Manny Machado’s sacrifice fly in the sixth inning and Ty France’s home run in the seventh.

It was the fifth time in six games the Padres went hitless in that circumstance, and they are 2 for 25 with runners in scoring position in that span

Sunday was just the second time they lost in 19 games in which they have gotten at least nine hits.

They had beaten the Athletics Saturday with two runs on two hits and won Friday with seven runs on seven hits.

The Athletics scored a run in the ninth inning against Bradgley Rodriguez to make the lift heavier for the Padres in the ninth.

They gave it a go but could not pull off a ninth victory in the final at-bat despite drawing two walks to start the inning.

After Jackson Merrill and Ramón Laureano reached base at the start, France struck out.

The Padres sent pinch-hitter Nick Castellanos to the plate in place of Rodolfo Durán, and the Athletics replaced left-hander Hogan Harris with righty Scott Barlow, who struck out Castellanos and got Fernando Tatis Jr. on a fly ball to right field.

Those were their first runs since the fourth inning, as Ron Marinaccio and Wandy Peralta did their part to facilitate a comeback by combining for 4 1/3 scoreless innings.

King’s troubles began with the first batter of the game.

After Carlos Cortes watched King’s first two pitches for strikes and fouled off the next three, he sent a changeup at the bottom of the zone 380 feet and off the top of the right field wall to put the A’s up 1-0.

King (4-3, 2.76) turned and watched the ball fly with a look of shock.

He went from bewildered to battered, as nine of the final 18 batters he faced reached base.

The Athletics twice in the second inning on a walk, a double and a single in the second inning. After a lead-off double in the fourth inning, a pair of one-out walks loaded the bases before King got a second out. But a wild pitch brought home the Athletics’ fourth run.

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