CINCINNATI — With two hits and two fly ball outs, the Padres tied Friday's game in the ninth inning. It was the kind of manufacturing and kind of late rally they have not produced often this season.
They scored in the 10th inning and again in the 11th, something they had done just once in the seven previous extra innings they had played.
And that was about all that could be said, as they lost a sixth consecutive game when the Reds tied the game in the 10th and won, 7-5, by scoring three runs against Drew Carlton in the 11th.
There was drama to the end, even before Spencer Steer walked it off with a two-out home run.
With Jonathan India beginning the bottom of the 11th on second base, Elly De La Cruz lined a double to right-center field to tie the game, moved to third on Kevin Newman's sacrifice bunt and beat shortstop Xander Bogaerts' throw home on Nick Senzel's grounder.
But De La Cruz's hand was prevented from touching the plate, as it was stopped by Padres catcher Gary Sánchez's foot. De La Cruz was called out, and the Reds' replay challenge, contending Sánchez had violated the collision rule, confirmed there was no violation.
But Steer followed with a home run over the wall in left field.
It was the eighth time the Padres have been walked off this season and dropped them to 0-7 in extra innings.
Bogaerts began the 11th on second base and scored on Sánchez's one-out single. The Padres could not add on, which meant they would be entrusting the slimmest of margins to a rookie who had faced just four batters in a high-leverage situation in his career.
The Padres were in that situation because closer Josh Hader had worked the ninth inning to keep the game tied 2-2.
With a runner having started the bottom of the 10th on second base, Ray Kerr got the first two outs on a groundout and a pop-up before Matt McLain lined a game-tying homer just over the wall in left field to tie the game 4-4.
That followed the Padres having tied the game in the ninth when Bogaerts led off with a single through the left side, and Jake Cronenworth laid down a bunt single before both moved up on successive fly ball outs to the warning track. Gary Sánchez's drive to the wall in left field got Bogaerts to third, and Matt Carpenter's sacrifice fly to left field allowed Bogaerts to amble home.
It was Reds' closer Alexis Diaz's first blown save in 23 chances this season.
Hader, pitching for the first time in 10 days, struck out three of the four batters he faced in the bottom of the ninth.
Trent Grisham hit a home run in a second consecutive game and was charged with his second error of the season.
One gave the Padres a 1-0 lead, one extended an inning and contributed to the Reds tying the game 1-1.
It continued to be that kind of season for the Padres. Just when they get going, they stumble.
The Padres' bullpen was again complicit in the loss, as Brent Honeywell surrendered Tyler Stephenson's home run in the seventh before the extra-inning struggles.
It was the second straight game a reliever took the loss and the fourth time in 11 games that a member of a bullpen that had to that point been as dependable as any in the major leagues was charged with a loss.
Friday was the Padres' sixth consecutive loss and dropped them eight games below .500, both season worsts.
Padres starter Seth Lugo did not allow a hit until the fourth inning and finished having allowed just an unearned run on five hits in six innings, the longest of his three outings since a stay on the injured list rehabbing a left calf strain.
Lugo was a seemingly routine catch from leaving the game with a lead.
Grisham gave the Padres the advantage when he launched the first pitch of the sixth inning over the wall in left-center field.
He helped hand the Reds their first run with two outs in the bottom of the sixth.
Lugo struck out McLain and India and appeared to get out of the inning on a fly ball to left-center field by De La Cruz, the cleanup hitter. Left fielder Juan Soto ran 80 feet to his left, calling for the ball and holding out his bare hand toward a charging Grisham, who sprinted 96 feet from center field and only at the last instant pulled up as the ball fell between the pair and Cruz bounded to second base.
The next batter, Jake Fraley, flared a single over second baseman Rougned Odor to tie the game.
The Padres got their first runner in scoring position on two-out walks by Sánchez and Carpenter in the seventh. That ended Reds starter Graham Ashcraft's evening, and Lucas Sims entered the game and struck out Odor.
Honeywell began the seventh by walking Steer and then picking him off before Stephenson hit a sweeper, on the 10th pitch of his at-bat, to the seats beyond left field.
Soto's two-out single was all the Padres got in the eighth inning before the rally in the ninth.
