What was left of the crowd of 32,416 at Petco Park on a gloomy afternoon loudly booed the San Diego Padres after Ha-Seong Kim made the last out of a dismal 4-3 loss to the Kansas City Royals.

The Padres were supposed to be so much better this year, with baseball’s third-highest payroll and a quartet of superstars in Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Xander Bogaerts and Juan Soto. Yet they dropped two of three to the Royals, who are last in the AL Central, and have lost nine of 11 overall to tumble to fourth place in the NL West, eight games behind the rival Los Angeles Dodgers and four games under .500.

Vinnie Pasquantino hit a tie-breaking two-run homer off Yu Darvish for the Royals. His homer to right field, his eighth, and Maikel Garcia’s RBI double gave Kansas City a 4-1 lead in the sixth inning.

San Diego’s offensive woes continued despite Kansas City needing a bullpen day. The Padres scored twice in the sixth to pull to 4-3 but Tatis, moved down to third in the lineup, popped out weakly with the bases loaded to end the inning.

The Padres loaded the bases with one out in the seventh against Aroldis Chapman, but Trent Grisham struck out for the fourth straight time and then a wild pitch by Chapman caromed off the backstop right back to catcher Salvador Perez, who easily tagged out Juan Soto trying to score, ending the inning.

Royals opener Carlos Hernández held the Padres to two hits in two scoreless innings while striking out four.

MJ Melendez hit an RBI double for the Royals in the fourth.

Josh Taylor (1-1) got two outs for the win. Scott Barlow pitched a perfect ninth for his sixth save.

UP NEXT

Royals: RHP Zack Greinke (1-4, 5.01 ERA) is scheduled to start Friday night in the opener of a three-game series at the Chicago White Sox, who will counter with RHP Michael Kopech (1-4, 5.74).