SAN DIEGO — The Padres are dragging at what would seem to be the wrong time.

Maybe it will turn around. Virtually every team that has played in a World Series could look back at a stretch in the waning months of the regular season that they simply had to survive.

Maybe it won’t turn around. A five-game cushion with 16 games remaining is probably safe. But winning games will be necessary.

The Padres did not do that Wednesday and have not done it much for going on three weeks.

A shorthanded bullpen was the culprit in the end Wednesday, as the Cincinnati Reds scored twice in the eighth inning against Kyle Hart and Adrian Morejón and held on for a 2-1 victory.

Fernando Tatis Jr., Nick Pivetta and Ramón Laureano had put the Padres in position for a win.

The Padres got just five hits in seven innings against Reds starter Andrew Abbott, the kind of pitcher they will see in the postseason should they get there.

But one of those hits was Tatis’ solo homer in the fifth inning that put the Padres up 1-0.

An impersonation of Tatis at the wall in left field by Laureano helped preserve that lead.

Laureano’s catch of a drive by Ke’Bryan Hayes in the seventh inning was not as spectacular as any of Tatis’ four home run robberies at Petco Park, but it was the final out in the top of the seventh inning and ended a scoreless night of work by Pivetta.

With Jeremiah Estrada, Mason Miller and Robert Suarez having worked the previous two nights and three of the previous four days, Morejón was the only one of the team’s high-leverage relievers available.

So Hart came on to start the eighth and didn’t do badly, getting two outs around a bunt single by TJ Friedl.

Morejon, whose 89.7% rate of stranding inherited runners was second best in the major leagues, took over with Friedl on second base after he moved there on a groundout.

A single by Elly De La Cruz tied the game, as Friedl sprinted home from second base and got his hand on the plate just in time to beat a throw from Tatis. De La Cruz stole second and scored on Austin Hays’ single.

Yuki Matsui took over for Morejón with two on and one out in the ninth inning and walked the bases loaded before getting the final two outs.

Gavin Sheets led off the bottom of the ninth with a double against Tony Santillan before Laureano, Jackson Merrill and Bryce Johnson made outs.

So now the Padres have lost 11 of their past 16, falling from first place on Aug. 24 to potentially three games behind the Dodgers in the National League West by the end of Wednesday night.

At least the pages are turning on the calendar, meaning time is running out on the teams that could overtake the Padres.

They hold the fifth of six NL playoff spots, three games ahead of the New York Mets and five up on the San Francisco Giants and Reds, who are out of playoff position.

And the Colorado Rockies are coming to town.

It was five days ago, on Saturday morning after a 3-0 loss to the Rockies, that they sat together at a breakfast in their downtown Denver hotel and talked about the state of things.

Manny Machado spoke. Mike Shildt did too. Virtually all of the traveling party — players, coaches, athletic training staff — was present.

The message was mostly a reminder of how good they are but also a call to refocus on what had made them so good for so much of the season. It was essentially, according to several people in attendance, a recognition of the urgency of the situation with three weeks remaining in the regular season with the caveat being that all they had to do was get back to playing their brand of baseball.

They won their next two games against the Rockies and the series opener on Monday against the Reds.

They have scored three runs since.

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