Padres' Michael King Disagreed With Craig Stammen's Costly Decision in Loss to Dodgers

The San Diego Padres dropped another heartbreaking game on Friday, losing 4-3 to the rival Los Angeles Dodgers.

But once again, it was how the team lost, rather than the loss itself, that really stung.

San Diego held a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning following a masterful six shutout innings from starter Michael King.

However, in the seventh, King started to show some signs of his command going out, and he was replaced by reliever Adrian Morejón.

Morejón seemed to immediately do his job, generating a gound ball to second base. However, infielder Jake Cronenworth booted what would have been a huge double play.

In the next at-bat, Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernandez hit a go-ahead grand slam, rattling the Padres the rest of the way.

After the game, King and Stammen seemed to disagree on the decisions made that led to another loss for the Padres. King didn't want to discuss his performance since the team had lost the game, and it was clear that the starter wanted to stay in.

“Fine,” King said of his performance. “Didn’t win the game.”

King had only thrown 75 pitches, but Stammen wanted to give the game to his bullpen.

“I wanted the next batter,” King said.

While King wasn't happy with how the game went, Stammen praised his starting pitcher.

“Dominated,” Stammen said of King. “Great outing by him. One of his best. He had a tough one the last one, and he bounced back with one of his better ones. He knew we needed it, and he gave it to us. We just weren’t able to finish it off for him."

The result for the Padres marked their seventh straight loss, sending the team below .500 with a record of 43-44. It has been a tough stretch of games for San Diego, and the team now finds itself four games out of the final wild-card spot in the National League.

The Padres have now lost 26 of their last 40 games overall, with this team completely spiraling out. The offense has been a problem all season long, and the starting pitcher has now started to unravel, too.

King has struggled to find consistency of late, with the right-hander allowing at least three runs in six of his previous seven outings before this game against the Dodgers. But the Padres bullpen wasn't able to hold the lead, making his performance a moot point in the end.

“It always makes it tougher when you have a lead late in the game and aren’t able to hold it and finish the game," Stammen said. "He was very efficient with his pitch count and probably had more in the tank, but at that point we felt really good about going to our bullpen and using one of our best guys to get some of their left-handed hitters.”

Stammen has heavily used his bullpen this year, with the reliance starting to backfire on the Padres. The only silver lining for the Padres' recent struggles is that star closer Mason Miller has only pitched four times over the last two weeks, giving him a chance to rest after a strong workload early in the season.

While there are still a few months left in the year offering the Padres a chance to turn the season around, the team seems to be in free fall. The upcoming trade deadline will allow the front office to make some roster changes, but unless multiple moves can be made, the rest of the season could be tough to navigate.

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