The Phillies continued their nine-week offensive funk, and Kyle Kendrick struggled again in an 8-3 loss last night to the San Diego Padres as the Phillies fell two games behind the New York Mets in the National League East.

Reineke, whom the Padres acquired late last month in a trade with the Houston Astros for Randy Wolf, didn't have anyone in awe, but he pitched well enough to beat the Phillies at Petco Park.

And Kendrick played a part in that. He allowed six hits, six runs and five walks in just 32/3 innings. That's coming off arguably the worst start of his big-league career Monday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, when he allowed nine hits and seven runs in 31/3 innings.

Kendrick is 0-2 with a 16.71 ERA (13 earned runs in seven innings) in his last two starts, and 2-4 with a 6.90 ERA (23 earned runs in 30 innings) in his last six starts. It was the sixth time in 25 starts this season that Kendrick failed to pitch at least five innings, and the fifth time he allowed six or more runs.

He failed to pitch at least five innings just once in 20 starts last season and never allowed more than five runs.

Everything unraveled for Kendrick in the fourth. He walked Chase Headley to lead off the fourth inning, then retired Nick Hundley and Sean Kazmar to put Headley at second base with two outs.

That's when the bottom fell out.

Kendrick allowed a single to left-center field to Reineke that scored Headley and made it 3-2. He then allowed a single to Jody Gerut that left runners on first and second.

Pitching coach Rich Dubee visited Kendrick on the mound, and Dubee didn't appear to be in a good mood. Maybe because Kendrick was starting to let the inning get away from him, and the Padres are not a team that anybody should be having much trouble with because they have the second-worst offense in the National League, averaging 3.81 runs a game.

But Kendrick followed Dubee's trip with a walk to Tadahito Iguchi to load the bases and get Clay Condrey up in the bullpen. Brian Giles then cleared the bases with a double that made it 5-3. The Padres ended up scoring another run in the inning.

The Phillies had one hit after Jayson Werth hit a leadoff single in the fifth. They managed just six hits overall, as Reineke allowed five hits and three runs in five innings.

The Phillies are hitting .198 (64 for 324) in their last 10 games, and .190 (37 for 195) in the first six games of this seven-game trip.

Read Todd Zolecki's Phillies blog at http://go.philly

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