Beyond the injury math, this was a clash of trajectories — a Padres team that keeps finding ways to win close ones running into a Guardians club that's had the opposite luck lately. That gap showed up early in the line, and it showed up on the scoreboard soon enough.
Cleveland actually built the first cushion, scoring in the 2nd and 3rd to go up 3-0 through three innings — the kind of start that should've put a slumping team in control. Instead, San Diego answered with 2 runs in the 4th and 3 more in the 5th to flip it to a 5-3 lead, then tacked on 2 more in the 7th while the Guardians could only chip away with single runs in the 6th and 8th.
Fernando Tatis Jr. has been the engine of this run, homering 5 times in a 9-game stretch entering this series, and the lineup around him has followed suit — San Diego's swept a series against the NL's best team, Milwaukee, in an 11-inning walk-off finish just two days earlier. That's the version of the Padres that showed up in Cleveland: patient early, then relentless once the middle innings opened up.
For Cleveland, this extended a rough patch that's now bled into back-to-back losses, and the pitching development story — Williams racking up double-digit strikeout games and looking like a genuine breakout arm — keeps getting buried under a lineup and bullpen that can't hold leads. San Diego, meanwhile, just keeps finding the next gear.