Playing from behind against the San Diego Padres is usually a recipe for failure, especially in the late innings once they’ve gone to their monster of a bullpen.

Sunday, however, the Red Sox had a prime opportunity to erase a five-run deficit but let it slip away.

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After scoring twice and loading the bases with nobody out in the top of the seventh, the Red Sox couldn’t get another run across and went on to lose 6-2 in Sunday’s series finale.

In doing so the Red Sox also dropped their first series since losing two of three to the Philadelphia Phillies between July 21-23, ending the club’s streak of consecutive series victories at four.

Though Brayan Bello largely pitched well, he put the Red Sox in a hole after he was unable to work his way out of trouble on multiple occasions.

With two outs and Fernando Tatis Jr. down in the count 0-2, Bello hit the Padres slugger with an errant sinker to put two men on. Both of those runners immediately came around to score when Luis Arraez launched a line drive into the gap for a two-run double.

Later in the fifth, Bello allowed a double by Jake Cronenworth and a two-out RBI single by Tatis that extended the San Diego lead to 3-0.

Finally in the sixth, Bello allowed a pair of singles, the latter an RBI knock with two outs by Xander Bogaerts, and then walked consecutive batters to load the bases. That prompted Cora to go to the bullpen, left-hander Chris Murphy — who allowed four walks while recording one out on Friday — walked another batter to drive in another run.

Murphy struck out Freddie Fermin to end the inning and avoid further damage, but Bello still finished with five runs allowed over 5.2 innings on six hits, three walks and seven strikeouts.

That was more than enough offense for Dylan Cease and the Padres pitching staff to work with.

Cease carved the Red Sox up over his six-plus innings, limiting Boston’s batters to four hits and two walks while striking out seven. He was particularly dominant his second time through the order, striking out six out of nine batters from the fourth to the sixth inning.

He departed to a standing ovation in the top of the seventh leading 5-0 after allowing a walk and a single to lead off the inning.

“The slider was the game changer,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters in San Diego postgame. “We put in some good at bats later on but early in the game he was dominant.”

Then things started getting interesting.

Padres right-hander Jason Adam came into the game and immediately hit Masataka Yoshida to load the bases. Then Romy Gonzalez came up and hit a soft ground ball up the middle that should have gone for a double play, but Bogaerts took his eye off the ball and booted it into center field, allowing two runs to score. Wilyer Abreu followed with a single to re-load the bases, and just like that the Red Sox had the go-ahead run at the plate and potentially three chances to keep the rally going.

It didn’t work out.

Adam struck out Ceddanne Rafaela for the first out and then won a seven-pitch battle against pinch hitter Abraham Toro for his second strikeout. San Diego went to the left-hander Adrian Morejon to face Roman Anthony, and Morejon finished the inning by striking out the rookie to leave the bases loaded.

“We didn’t put the ball in play,” Cora said. “Ceddanne got a good pitch to hit the first one and he was a little bit early, hit it foul, Toro fought the at bat, backdoor slider to get him and then they put in the lefty, the kid put a good at bat but we weren’t able to put the ball in play before two outs and we didn’t score.”

The Padres came back with another run in the bottom of the seventh on a Ryan O’Hearn sacrifice fly, and the Red Sox never seriously threatened again.

The Red Sox have now lost consecutive games for the first time since dropping the first two games of their Phillies series nearly three weeks ago. Boston also falls a half-game behind Seattle for the top spot in the AL Wild Card race.

Boston won’t have any time to catch its breath, as Monday the club opens a three-game road series against the Houston Astros. The good news is Garrett Crochet (13-4, 2.24) will get the ball first, facing off against Houston’s Cristian Javier, who will be making his season debut coming off last year’s Tommy John surgery.

First pitch Monday is scheduled for 8:10 p.m. ET.

Tolle rocky in debut

Top Red Sox pitching prospect Payton Tolle made his Triple-A debut on Sunday, and his first outing in Worcester got off to a tough start. After loading the bases with one out Tolle allowed a grand slam, and then later in the inning surrendered a two-run home run to fall behind 6-0 out of the gate.

From there Tolle settled down and didn’t allow a run the rest of the way, but his final line wasn’t pretty. The 22-year-old lefty allowed six runs (five earned) over five innings on seven hits, a walk and three strikeouts.

Kristian Campbell hit a two-run home run in the eventual 6-3 WooSox loss.

Extra innings

Cora told reporters in San Diego pregame that Marcelo Mayer (right wrist sprain) hasn’t begun doing baseball activities and that he isn’t sure if the shot he received this past week was effective. … Carlos Narvaez (knee soreness) will start Monday in Houston after being left out of the lineup for four straight games. Narvaez entered Sunday’s finale in the eighth inning after Toro pinch hit for Connor Wong. … After Crochet takes the hill in Monday’s opener in Houston, the Red Sox will go with Dustin May on Tuesday and Walker Buehler in Wednesday’s series finale.