SAN DIEGO — The final game before the All-Star break went down like many before it.
It may have been a little worse than most. Or perhaps it just seems that way as the Padres continue to slog through a fog of offensive futility.
Against a team that had lost all five games it had played at Petco Park this season and all but five of its previous 22 games in San Diego, the Padres finished what is traditionally called the first half of the season with a 3-1 loss on Sunday.
Four days without a game is just what they need. While Major League Baseball pauses, Fernando Tatis Jr. will continue to swing a bat, moving closer to a return that figures to help a pop-less offense.
The anticipated return of Tatis later this month or early in August and Wil Myers probably a little earlier certainly can’t hurt.
Victories Friday and Saturday secured the series against the Diamondbacks, the only team against which the Padres have won a series since mid-June.
In their other six series leading up to the break, the Padres went 0-4-2.
While their 52-42 record is fourth best in the National League and has them holding onto the fifth of six playoff spots, they have won just 11 times in their past 29 games.
In that stretch, they are not batting much worse than they have all season. And that tells its own story.
They entered Sunday’s game with a .374 slugging percentage, tied with the Nationals for fourth lowest in the majors.
MacKenzie Gore loading the bases with two walks and a single and Steven Wilson walking in two runs in the seventh inning was the deciding turn of events on Sunday.
The Diamondbacks had just four hits and scored one run, on David Peralta’s sixth-inning homer, off Mike Clevinger.
The Padres have some bullpen issues to go along with the general offensive malaise. Some returning pitchers are expected to help there as well.
However, the difference more often than not lately has been an inability to get big hits — whether those be home runs or hits with runners in scoring position.
Luke Voit’s home run Sunday, which cut the Diamondbacks’ lead to 3-1 in the seventh inning, was his second in two days. The Padres have hit 11 other homers in their past 22 games, and three of those came in one game in Colorado. Their 77 home runs are sixth fewest in the majors this season.
Simultaneously, they are not getting enough timely hits.
The Padres are batting .224 with runners in scoring position over their past 29 games. That includes them going 1-for-5 on Sunday.
That one hit was their third single of the second inning.
With Eric Hosmer on second base and Austin Nola on first, CJ Abrams grounded a two-out single through the right side. But the ball was fielded in shallow right field by Daulton Varsho, who threw home one hop to get Hosmer.
