¹û½´ÊÓƵ

SAN DIEGO — Whatever challenges lie ahead for the Cardinals’ pitching staff after subtracting three veterans at the trade deadline, perhaps the most daunting comes from within.

A clanking offense is providing inconsistent spurts of support.

One of the anchors for the Cardinals as they withdrew from the playoff contention in recent weeks has been an offense that can vanish from game to game. One day after rallying from a four-run deficit with eight runs, the Cardinals mustered a few in the ninth to put gloss on a 7-3 loss to the San Diego Padres on Sunday at a packed Petco Park.

The rally in the ninth sent nine batters to the plate, tidied up the box score and meant the Cardinals avoided a 10th shutout in their past 33 games.

In front of a third consecutive sellout to see San Diego host the Cardinals, Padres right-hander Dylan Cease buzzed through five strong innings, getting nine of his 15 outs via strikeout. He was the second San Diego starter of the weekend to hold the Cardinals to one hit during his innings. The deadline-enriched Padres won the weekend series and won for the seventh time in eight games. The victory Sunday gave the Padres the season series, too, with four wins in the seven games between the teams over the past two weeks.

In the first 17 innings of their two losses at Petco Park, the Cardinals managed one run and went 0 for 6 with runners scoring position — illustrating both a lack of hits and a lack of chances. The Cardinals did not get a second hit of the game Sunday until the ninth inning.

Ivan Herrera had their first two hits of the game.

He scored the first run of the ninth as the first five Cardinals of the ninth inning reached base to draw Padres closer Robert Suarez into the game. He faced the potential tying run at the plate and snared a line drive back at him for the final out.

A two-run homer by Jake Cronenworth in the fourth inning was the only scar on Andre Pallante’s five innings. Yet it seemed insurmountable because of how little the Cardinals lineup could do against Cease or how little the Cardinals lineup has done recently at all.

San Diego secured the win with its late bursts of offense.

Jackson Merrill cleared the bases with a triple off Gordon Graceffo in the seventh inning. Merrill then scored easily on a sacrifice fly to mid-center field to widen the Padres lead to six runs. Newcomer Ramon Laureano hit his first home run since becoming a Padre this past week and upped the lead to seven runs after the eighth inning.

At that point, the Cardinals had produced four base runners total and struck out 15 times.

Underlying offensive woes

While the Cardinals pitching staff has been thrust under the microscope in the past week because starters always are, the trade deadline brought attention to the club’s reimagined bullpen, a significant subplot continued to develop on the other side of the game.

The Cardinals offense has developed a habit for ghosting.

For the second time in three games at San Diego, the Cardinals had one hit through the first six innings. On Friday night, Willson Contreras broke through with a solo homer before the Cardinals tidied up their line with a few hits later. On Sunday, the hit came early — Herrera ripped a single in the top of the first — and then nothing for the remainder of Cease’s outing. The right-hander became the second Padres starter of the series to complete his game against the Cardinals by allowing only one hit.

The Cardinals were scoreless and teetering toward another shutout when San Diego’s bullpen took over in the top of the seventh inning.

Shut out in back-to-back games at the end of the most recent homestand, the Cardinals have had a rash of them. In their previous 20 losses coming into Sunday’s game, the Cardinals were shut out nine times. Three of those shutouts came in Pittsburgh, three of them came against the Cubs and all nine corresponded with the Cardinals’ fade from the division race and into seller mode at the trade deadline.

Feel the cool breeze

The subject of trade reports approaching the deadline and a starter who several teams attempted to acquire from the Padres, Cease instead remained with his club. The Padres front office augmented the roster around him without trading him — and then got the exact kind of start they need from him.

Cease struck out the side in the second inning and gathered momentum from there.

But he wasn’t alone in contributing to a breezy Sunday afternoon.

Through four innings, Cease had 18 swings and misses from the Cardinals. Pallante had 13 swings and misses from the Padres. There were only 17 balls in play at that point and 31 swings and misses. The Padres’ second reliever into the game, right-hander Jeremiah Estrada, struck out the side in the seventh inning to give the Padres a dozen strikeouts for the game with two more innings yet to play.

Cease, who lugged a 3-10 record into Sunday’s game, was the most dominant of the arms. He went a stretch of 14 consecutive Cardinals without the ball leaving the infield. After Herrera’s single in the first, the only other base runners the Cardinals got against the right-hander were from a walk and a catcher’s interference. The Cardinals had to challenge the strikeout call at home to get the catcher’s interference call that put Herrera at first base in the third.

He remained there when Cease struck out Alec Burleson.

More than half of Cease’s outs in the game came on strikeouts as he challenged the Cardinals with a fastball that touched 99.3 mph and averaged 97.2 mph. He mixed in a slider that averaged 89.5 mph. The 14 times the Cardinals took a swing at the slider, they missed seven times. That set them up for Cease’s curveball, which they took seven times for a called strike.

Cease finished his six innings by retiring the final seven Cardinals he faced.

Four were on strikeouts.

Two didn’t get the ball out of the infield.

Pallante tiptoes around trouble

The Padres had their chances to dent Pallante’s line long before they did, but the Cardinals’ right-hander slipped free of trouble despite what San Diego and his defense threw at him.

The first two batters Pallante faced reached base, but neither got as far as second. Fernando Tatis Jr. was thrown out trying to steal and a ground out and strikeout kept the inning from manifesting any more headaches for Pallante. In the second, Burleson lost a popup in the sun. Pallante erased that base runner with a quick double play. That’s how the first three innings played out. Pallante walked three, including two in the third inning.

That inning began with a bunt single.

It ended with the bases loaded and Xander Bogaerts at the plate.

Pallante mixed sinkers with breaking balls to get to a 2-2 count against Bogaerts with a scoreless game on the line. Bogaerts took a sinker for a strike, fouled another sinker off, and when Pallante went back to the fastball — he shoved a 94.1-mph four-seamer that Bogaerts foul-tipped for the strikeout.

The only runs Pallante allowed came on one swing in the fourth inning.

Ramon Laureano, one of the Orioles the Padres acquired at the trade deadline, reached on an infield single to third base. Cronenworth followed with his ninth home run of the season. That same fastball that Bogaerts missed Cronenworth crushed. He hit a 94.8 mph fastball 398 feet and just over the right-field wall for a 2-0 lead.

The Padres piled on later, but that one swing was enough to put the Cardinals too far behind for their current offense to catch up.