BOX SCORE

The Chicago Cubs headed south to San Diego to face the Padres after a thrilling — and dominant — weekend series win over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

But the Cubs’ bullpen — which was solid in LA — blew a two-run lead with a combination of some bad batted ball luck and a lack of command Monday night, and the Padres won 10-4 at Petco Park.

Here are three takeaways from the loss that dropped the Cubs to 11-8, as the Padres (14-3) remained undefeated at home in 11 games this season:

Bullpen woes

Two things can be true: The bullpen wasn’t good enough and ran into some crummy luck.

Let’s tackle the first one.

Manny Machado worked an incredible 11-pitch, one-out walk in the sixth inning against Jameson Taillon, pushing the Cubs right-hander’s pitch count to 89 and forcing manager Craig Counsell to turn to Brad Keller and the bullpen.

You can argue Counsell should have kept Taillon in and seen if he could escape the jam, but left-handed-hitting Gavin Sheets has owned righties this season (.343 average, .956 OPS entering Monday) and facing him a third time isn’t ideal. Keller induced a pop-up, but it dropped between Ian Happ and Dansby Swanson in left field for a hit.

Keller allowed the tying run, but he escaped a tricky situation with limited damage, all things considered. More on that in a bit …

Counsell turned to Nate Pearson for the seventh, and he allowed three runs on three walks and two hits and recorded only one out. Just eight of the 20 pitches he threw were strikes — his command just wasn’t there, and the Padres ambushed him.

The natural question you might be asking: “Why not Julian Merryweather, Porter Hodge or Ethan Roberts?”

That’s a fair question, but Merryweather had pitched on Saturday and Sunday, so Counsell likely was avoiding him. Roberts pitched Sunday and hadn’t thrown on back-to-back days, but he was pressed into it when Eli Morgan left in the eighth with an injury.

Hodge and Ryan Pressly are Counsell’s two most trusted leverage arms — they’ve routinely pitched the eighth and ninth when the Cubs have led this season. Both pitched Sunday, and in a tie game, you’re not going to turn to them and risk having them unavailable in a leverage situation Tuesday.

The other reason is that pitchers such as Pearson and Morgan need to throw and be counted on throughout the season. The Cubs have played just over 10 percent of the season and will need all their relievers throughout the year. Not every reliever is a leverage option, and that’s OK. They need pitchers who can pitch in close or losing situations and give them a chance to rally.

That didn’t happen Monday.

We saw what happened in 2023 when the Cubs relied on a small group of relievers. Merryweather, Mark Leiter Jr. and Adbert Alzolay were that group, and by the end of the year, two finished on the injured list, and the Cubs missed out on the playoffs.

BABIP bad luck

OK, back to Keller and that sixth inning.

That looping pop-up in no-man’s land should have been caught by Happ or Swanson, making it two outs with a runner on first base. Instead, Xander Bogaerts coaxed a walk to load the bases.

Still, Keller induced weak contact out of José Iglesias, who hit a swinging bunt down the third base line. The only problem was it was another ball placed in the perfect position for San Diego, leading to an infield single. The game-tying hit was a Jason Heyward grounder that caromed off Swanson’s glove at short.

The first hit that Pearson allowed in the seventh was a Luis Arraez double that Cubs first baseman Michael Busch probably should have fielded cleanly. If he did, it could have been a massive double play that put the Cubs an out closer to keeping it a tie game headed to the eighth.

Just how much lousy luck did the Cubs have that inning? Well, the Padres only had one hard-hit ball — exit velocity over 95 mph — in the sixth and seventh innings: Arraez’s groundout to lead off the sixth against Taillon.

Baseball is a wonky sport, and hard-hit balls sometimes can turn into outs and cue shots can be RBI hits. What can’t happen, though, is defensive miscues, especially for a Cubs team predicated on run prevention.

Busch’s heater

You officially can classify Busch as on fire at the plate. Three consecutive days with a home run will do that.

Busch’s two-run blast in the fourth gave the Cubs the lead and ended Padres pitchers’ 37-inning shutout streak. Busch continues to showcase improvement from his rookie season, and is hitting .310 with a 1.015 OPS.

Seiya Suzuki was out of the Cubs’ lineup for the second consecutive day as he nurses right wrist pain. That should have created a dent around Kyle Tucker, but Busch’s play has minimized Suzuki’s absence.

The Cubs need other hitters beyond Tucker and Suzuki to step up, and Busch is starting to become a nice option. As is Pete Crow-Armstrong, who had a three-hit game, one day after his two-homer performance in LA.

The Cubs’ offense has been the best in baseball so far, but will it stay that way over a 162-game season? Probably not, but players such as Busch and Crow-Armstrong emerging as offensive threats can help Chicago outperform expectations.