SAN FRANCISCO -- It's fair to say that Chris Young simply hasn't been himself lately, though if it is any consolation -- and it's likely not -- he's surely not alone in that regard.

The Padres kicked off their seven-game road trip with a clunker Monday at AT&T Park, falling to the Giants, 9-4, before a crowd of 35,650 that came to watch a team that fell out of the postseason chase a while ago and one that's struggling to remain in it.

San Diego (85-71) dropped its fourth consecutive game to fall into a tie with the idle Phillies for the Wild Card lead, while slipping three games back of the first-place Diamondbacks in the National League West.

"We can't worry about what everyone else is doing," said San Diego center fielder Brady Clark, who had two hits in his first game replacing Mike Cameron, who was lost Monday for the rest of the season with a hand injury, "just what we're doing."

What the Padres aren't doing much of lately is winning, although they certainly felt as if the margin between winning and losing on Monday was fairly narrow. Really narrow, if you ask Young and the rest of the Padres.

Young (9-8) allowed a season-high seven runs in five innings -- including five in the third inning alone -- to remain winless since July 19. That game in July was, oddly enough, the last start he made before being felled by an oblique injury and later tightness in his back.

Young pronounced himself fit Monday, though he was certainly miffed by the strike zone of home plate umpire Tim McClelland, specifically when it came to three near misses in that third inning.

"There were a couple of at-bats where he threw some pitches that looked good that didn't get calls on," Padres manager Bud Black said.

Young, who allowed eight hits and had four walks and a wild pitch that led to a run, felt as though a leadoff walk to Kevin Frandsen in the third inning, another walk later in the inning to Rich Aurilia and then a broken-bat, RBI single to right by Fred Lewis, all came after two-strike misses on balls that looked like strikes.

"Sometimes you don't get the breaks," he said. "There were some good pitches in there, some borderline pitches that didn't get called. The catcher [Josh Bard] thought so. The pitching coach [Darren Balsley] thought so.

"It's frustrating. It was a big game on a night where we needed to win."

Those were the breaks, though, and in the last four days, they certainly haven't fallen in the Padres' favor. And Monday was no better, as the team found out that outfielders Cameron (hand) and Milton Bradley (knee) will miss this critical stretch run.

"You hate to lose guys like Milton and Cam on the same day, but you've got to push past that," Clark said.

That might be easier said than done for an offense that lost two very important pieces on the same day, though offense certainly wasn't a problem early on Monday against Giants starter Barry Zito (10-13).

Zito allowed a hit to Brian Giles to open the game, a hit that when coupled with Lewis' error, allowed the Padres' leadoff hitter to advance to second base. Then two batters later, the hot-hitting Kevin Kouzmanoff lined a single up the middle for a 1-0 lead.

The Padres got another run in the second inning when Clark doubled and moved to third base on a single by Young. Clark then raced home on a groundout by Giles. But that 2-0 lead was hardly safe as the Giants scored twice in the second inning before pouring it on during the third inning.

"The third inning, the walks and some well-placed hits singles ... they sort of dumped some hits in front of the outfielders," Black said. "The walks came back to haunt him a bit."

The Padres would score single runs in the fourth and fifth innings off Zito. Giles drove in a run and Bard had a run-scoring single. The Padres had 12 hits, including three by their first baseman, Adrian Gonzalez, though they stranded 13 runners on base.

"We had some good at-bats and were swinging the bats well," Black said. "We couldn't sustain some bigger innings."

Black was asked after the game if the Padres might be better off steering themselves to the Wild Card race instead of the NL West Division race. He shook his head.

"We're not out of the division ... we've got to win some games," he said. "It's a six-game season. We still determine our own fate. I know our guys are excited about it."