TORONTO — Blake Snell tripped and fell into some old habits. But he caught himself.
It was the offense stumbling into the quicksand it had largely avoided recently and a couple relievers fumbling away the bullpen’s resurgence that doomed the Padres to a 4-0 loss Thursday against the Blue Jays.
Snell defied what would seem possible by navigating 12 baserunners and allowing just one run in five innings, becoming just the 13th pitcher in the past decade to walk seven batters and allow just one run in a game.
Home Run Derby champion Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s seventh-inning homer off Luis Garcia produced the game’s other run.
The loss prevented the Padres from sweeping the series and dropped them to 3-4 on this road trip as they headed to Detroit, the last of three cities on the 11-day, 10-game trek.
By one measure, the Padres had more opportunity to score than the Blue Jays.
Twice, they failed after getting a runner to third base with one out. For all their traffic, the Blue Jays had that chance just once.
Snell tied a career high by walking the seven batters and also yielded five hits.
Catcher Gary Sánchez helped Snell out of the first inning and helped make it so the Blue Jays scored only one run in the second inning. And Snell escaped unscathed after having the bases loaded in the fourth inning and after walking the first two batters in the fifth.
He threw 106 pitches while going fewer than six innings for the second straight start but just the third time in his past 10 starts.
He entered the game with the second-lowest ERA in the National League, and it dropped .04 to 2.67.
Over the course of his previous 10 starts — since May 25 — Snell led the majors by a wide margin with a 0.62 ERA, .156 average allowed and 91 strikeouts in 58 innings.
In that time, he had developed into having a true four-pitch mix. He hardly had one (his fastball) in any consistent manner.
The command Snell mostly exhibited the previous two months, a lack of which has frequently been his challenge during periods of trouble, was gone Thursday.
He threw just six strikes among his 15 first-inning pitches but was able to survive two walks and extend his career-high scoreless streak to 22 innings with some help from a double-play grounder and Sánchez picking off Guerrero at first base.
Sánchez again helped Snell in the second after Whit Merrifield singled and stole second. Merrifield, who had taken off and appeared to have third stolen was instead the second out of the inning on a perfect throw to the front of the bag, where Manny Machado caught the ball and placed the tag.
The bases did not stay clear, however, as Snell walked Santago Espinal on nine pitches and had Alejandro Kirk jump on a first-pitch fastball at the very top of the zone to move Espinal to third. Jordan Luplow then reached out across the plate to ground a 3-1 changeup up the middle that made it 1-0.
Kevin Kiermaier’s line drive to left field ended the second inning on Snell’s 39th pitch of the game. He was at 54 pitches after a scoreless third and 76 after an eventful fourth inning in which two infield singles and a walk loaded the bases with one out before Snell struck out Kiermaier and got leadoff batter George Springer on a popup.
Snell walked the first two batters in the fifth, becoming the first Padres pitcher to walk seven batters since Eric Lauer did so in 2018, before ending his day with two strikeouts and a groundout.
Snell threw 106 pitches, 55 of them strikes.
Steven Wilson worked a scoreless sixth, running Padres relievers’ scoreless streak to seven innings over three games, before Guerrero’s one-out homer off García, the third home run the right-hander had allowed in a span of 17 batters.
That turned on the spigot for a bullpen that had allowed at least one run in 17 straight games heading into this series.
Tom Cosgrove began the bottom of the seventh inning by allowing a single to Espinal and a home run to Kirk. Another single followed before Cosgrove recorded his only out. Fellow rookie Alek Jacob entered and retired the next two batters.
The list of Padres’ letdowns on offense was long.
The Padres got a break in the second inning when Espinal, at second base, booted a grounder by Sánchez that moved Xander Bogaerts, who had singled, to third with one out. Matt Carpenter followed with a pop fly to shortstop before Trent Grisham grounded out to keep the game tied 0-0.
After the Jays went up 1-0 in the third, Carpenter also flied out with runners at first and second in the fourth.
Trent Grisham led off the fifth inning with a single, the first hit by a Padres player other than Bogaerts. A fly ball out by Alfonso Rivas and a double play grounder by Fernando Tatis Jr. made nothing of that.
Soto walked to start the sixth, and Bogaerts’ third single of the day moved him to third with one out. A Jake Cronenworth pop-up and Sanchez groundout ended that threat.
Grisham’s one-out walk was followed by pinch-hitter Ha-Seong Kim skying a ball to shallow right field that Guerrero, the Jay’s first baseman, caught on the grass with his back to the infield. Grisham trying to give himself a chance to get to second if Guerrero didn’t make the catch, then could not get back to the base in time to avoid being doubled up by Guerrero’s throw to pitcher Tim Mayza, who was covering the bag.
With the Padres still trailing just 2-0, Tatis singled and Soto walked to start the eighth inning before Machado struck out and Bogaerts hit a soft grounder to third baseman Matt Chapman to start an inning-ending double play.
