The Padres have myriad problems.

It can be argued that it is a toss up as to which is their biggest.

Their No.2 and No.4 hitters (not to mention the guy who was their lead-off hitter and is now batting fifth) all have offensive numbers well below what their salaries and past performance suggest they should be.

In Monday night’s 5-2 loss to the Reds, the Padres went 8⅔ innings without a hit between Jurickson Profar leading off the bottom of the first with a game-tying home run and Jake Cronenworth’s two-out double in the ninth.

That sort of impotence can’t continue if they are to make anything of this season.

But if there had to be a place to start when examining how their current slide from a team with a winning record to a team that hasn’t really been close to winning in several days, it would be where the game starts.

Their starting pitchers have allowed 26 runs in 23⅓ innings over the past five games. Of those runs, 18 have come in the first three innings.

The Padres have lost all of those games.

And Matt Waldron was arguably the best of the five, as he made it through six innings and allowed one of his four runs on an obscure balk rule last night.

It wasn’t going to take four runs to make Reds starter Nick Lodolo a winner, as he struck out 11 batters in seven innings and did not allow a baserunner after walking the first two batters in the second. Ater those walks, Lodolo struck out nine of the next 12 batters. Relievers Fernando Cruz and Elias Diaz continued a string of 23 consecutive outs before Cronenworth’s double and an RBI single by Manny Machado.

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