Padres lose early lead, fall in series opener to Blue Jays

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jul 11, 2026

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — The San Diego Padres are trying to hang on.

Long enough to get to next week’s All-Star break without falling further behind.

Long enough to get to next month’s trade deadline having persuaded the front office to add some pieces.

Long enough to get some starting pitchers back.

It is not working out all that well.

They could not hang on to an early lead Friday night and then could not come back, losing 5-3 to the Toronto Blue Jays at Petco Park.

The Padres were attempting to get back to .500, the perfectly mediocre mark they were above for nearly three months before falling below it on their recent 1-6 road trip.

They got back to even with two victories in the middle of this week’s four-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks but fell to 46-47 with another loss Thursday, and after Friday are in danger of falling to three games below .500 for the first time since they were 2-5 on April 3.

Xander Bogaerts’ two-run homer staked them to a 2-0 lead in Friday’s first inning, but they went down relatively quietly after that and fell behind when JP Sears ran out of gas a third time through the order, and Jhony Brito could not pick him up.

A lead-off walk led to a run scoring on Tijuana native Alejandro Kirk’s double in the fourth inning, and Sears left Brito with runners at the corners with one out in the fifth.

The game was tied one pitch later when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. dribbled a ball toward third base that died in the grass.

The next hit was not cheap, as Kazuma Okamoto gave the Blue Jays the lead when he pulled a 95 mph sinker that was down and in 377 feet to the seats in left field to make it 5-2.

The Padres’ attempt to mount a comeback against one of the better bullpens in the major leagues was fruitless until they were down to their last out.

Luis Campusano, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill hit two-out singles in the ninth against Louis Varland to get a run in and bring Bogaerts to the plate as the potential winning run. He grounded out.

The Padres’ only runner in scoring position the previous three innings was Ty France, who led off the sixth with a double before moving to third on Miguel Andujar’s fly ball to right field and then watching as pinch-hitter Miguel Rengifo struck out and Campusano fouled out.

The Padres went down in order against Jeff Hoffman in the seventh and Tyler Rogers in the eighth.

The Blue Jays, who improved to 45-49 record, were able to come back in part because the Padres were unable to add on against a pitcher who has given up a lot of runs in a limited time this season.

The Padres continued their habit of helping struggling starting pitchers look good. Or at least better than those starters previously looked in most games.

Shane Bieber did not make it through five innings, but after a walk by Gavin Sheets and a single by France with two outs in the first inning, he was able to spread out four hits and a walk without further damage.

The last of the hits Bieber allowed was Manny Machado’s flared single with two outs in the fifth inning, and that prompted Blue Jays manager John Schneider to go to left-handed reliever Mason Fluharty, who struck out Sheets.

Bieber began the season on the injured list after experiencing what the Blue Jays termed “arm fatigue” during spring training. He had allowed 13 runs in 13 innings in his three starts this season.

Bieber won the 2020 American League Cy Young Award with the Guardians and brought a 3.23 career ERA into this season. There is a decent chance he is going to get it right and have many better nights than that.

But he is merely the latest in a long line of starting pitchers who have used the Padres to get well for at least a night.

In the previous 11 starts made by pitchers who entered their game against the Padres with an ERA above 5.00, those pitchers posted a collective 3.11 ERA.