In a game that the San Diego could have made a major stride forward in what has been an inconsistent start to the 2023 season, they fell flat against the New York Yankees. After defeating the Yankees 5-1 in game one of a three-game series in the Bronx, the Padres sent out starter Yu Darvish to try and take the series against a surging Yankees team.

Moments before the game, Padres’ slugger Juan Soto was scratched from the lineup due to back issues, which was a big blow to the San Diego lineup that has relied on his hot bat of late to jumpstart their offense.

Without Soto and also Manny Machado, who has been on the mend after being hit in the hand by a pitch, the Padres’ lineup was desperate for someone to step up.

Unfortunately for the Padres, they did not get much from Darvish, as he broke his streak of 37 straight games with at least five innings pitched, going only 2.2 innings while allowing seven earned runs. Darvish did not look sharp and ailed to locate a lot of his pitches.

“It was just one of those days that they were looking for pitches and got them, or maybe not his best as far as location,” said manager Bob Melvin about Darvish’s underwhelming performance against the Yankees on Sunday.

The Padres held a 3-1 lead after the first half of the third inning, but that is when things fell apart for Darvish and the Padres. The Padres would allow seven runs in the third inning and could just never recover from the rough inning.

As mentioned before, Darvish’s command was just not there, leaving a lot of pitches over the plate to a dangerous Yankees lineup that took full advantage of the mistakes he made.

Though the Padres made it close late in the game after a Rougned Odor two-run home run in the seventh inning, making the game a two-run game, the Padres’ bullpen could not keep it as close, giving up two runs in the eighth to push the lead to four, which put the Yankees up 10-6 heading into the ninth.

“Offensively, we did some good things coming back, just not enough, gave up too many runs,” said Melvin about the Padres’ potential to come back, but facing too much offensively to climb back from.

Though the Padres would score a run in the ninth to make it 10-7, they were not able to rally and dropped the game, as well as the series, to the Yankees.

What was supposed to be a pitching duel between two aces, Darvish and Gerrit Cole, turned into more of an offensive game in which the Yankees out-slugged the Padres.

The Padres now have a day off on Monday before they head to Miami to face the Marlins for a three-game series and look to turn their inconsistent start around.

Kevin Modafferi

Kevin is a San Diego Native covering the San Diego Padres and their affiliates