MIAMI — The Padres say this is different.
Different mindset. Different manager and coaches. Lots of different players.
Curiously, what is happening on the field is disappointingly familiar.
It’s August, and the Padres are scuffling. It’s crunch time, and they are getting crunched.
It’s usually their offense that lets them down. It is occasionally their pitching. Sometimes it is a bit of both.
Tuesday, it was that.
And the resulting 4-3 loss to the Marlins was their third defeat in five games on a trip in which they first visited Washington, where they won a somewhat disappointing two of three against the worst team in the major leagues.
The Marlins, who were 15 games below .500 before beating the Padres the past two days, have better pitchers than the Nationals. But the Marlins’ offense is enduring a two-week stretch of futility unseen in the major leagues in more than four decades.
A night after being shut out for the third time in eight games, the Padres scored Tuesday. Just not enough.
For the first time in 17 games, the Marlins managed more than three runs in a game. That ended the longest such streak in the major leagues since 1979.
Most germane to the Padres, the Marlins’ production for two nights at mostly quiet and relatively empty loanDepot park has been enough to beat them.
They are 65-54 with 43 games to play. And they are running from the ghost of 2021, when they went from 17 games above .500 and seemingly secure in a playoff spot on Aug. 11 to four games below .500 at season’s end.
Manny Machado, who save for the month of July has been the Padres’ only consistent run producer, cleared loaded bases in the seventh inning to tie the game 3-3.
But the Marlins retook the lead with a run in the bottom of the inning against reliever Luis Garcia.
The Marlins had taken a 3-0 lead against starter Sean Manaea — on solo home runs by Nick Fortes in the second and fourth innings and a walk, a single and Jesus Aguilar’s RBI double in the third.
Manaea was pulled after four innings, and Nabil Crismatt worked a perfect fifth and sixth.
The Padres patiently wore out Marlins starter Edward Escobar, who took 91 pitches to get through four innings. But despite having a runner in scoring position with one out in the first two innings, they were unable to score against Edwards.
And then they were mostly ineffective against five relievers, beginning with Huascar Brazoban in the fifth.
After he set the Padres down in order in the sixth inning, singles by Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar and a walk by Juan Soto loaded the bases with one out in the seventh against Andrew Nardi, who was making his major league debut.
The Marlins went to right-hander Elieser Hernandez to face Machado, who sent the fifth pitch he saw to the gap in left-center field as all three runners ran home.
The Padres created another chance when Wil Myers led off the eighth inning with a double down the left field line. But Myers was thrown out by right fielder Brian Anderson trying to advance on Trent Grisham’s fly ball that didn’t travel all that deep.
Ha-Seong Kim followed with a walk, and pinch-hitter Brandon Drury moved him to third with a single off new reliever Richard Bleier before Jurickson Profar’s fielder’s choice grounder ended the inning.
Soto led off the ninth by beating out a grounder up the middle for an infield single off Bleier, and Machado followed with a single off Dylan Floro, the new Marlins pitcher. Josh Bell struck out, his 23rd straight at-bat without a hit. So did Jake Cronenworth and Wil Myers, ending the Padres’ eighth loss in 12 games.
