Brock Peterson is making his major league debut.   UPI/Bill Greenblatt

Brock Peterson making his major league debut. UPI/Bill Greenblatt

With a 10-1 record on June 20, Lance Lynn has now lost four of his previous five decisions. He gave up four runs in the first three innings as the Cardinals dropped a 5-3 decision Saturday night. My concern with Lynn was that he’d repeat 2012, where he struggled in the second half after making the All-Star roster. Manager Mike Matheny now has the same observation.

“He’s had a couple weird starts and when those start to compound you’ve got to stop and regroup, and it didn’t look like he was able to do that tonight,” Matheny said. “It was pretty slow and it was talked about, but you also don’t rush a guy when he doesn’t have a good feel for his fastball. That wasn’t how we drew it up.”

The Padres had nine base runners in the first three innings while taking a 4-0 lead, scoring twice in the third on a run-scoring wild pitch on a 2-2 pitch against Nick Hundley followed by Hundley’s broken-bat infield hit.

After San Diego starter Edison Volquez threw three perfect innings to start the game, the Cardinals scored three to chase him after five. 29-year-old rookie Brock Peterson got an RBI groundout in his first major league at-bat after getting called up to replace injured Matt Holliday. That followed a two-run single from Allen Craig.

The Cardinals were shut down from that point on by the Padres’ bullpen. Nick Vincent, Dale Thayer, Luke Gregorson and Huston Street worked an inning apiece. Carlos Quentin’s RBI double off Trevor Rosenthal in the ninth put the Padres up by two runs.