PHILADELPHIA — Yu Darvish came out of the All-Star break strong, and so did the Padres’ offense.
The Padres were able to survive Luis García continuing his first-half command struggles.
Six innings from Darvish and home runs by Gary Sánchez, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Juan Soto did the bulk of the damage, and Josh Hader closed out an 8-3 victory over the Phillies Friday night in the first game of what is traditionally called the second half of the season.
As if a ninth inning in which García allowed a home run, a single and walked two and Soto had a routine fly ball clang off his glove wasn’t enough extra work, now comes the hard part.
The teams play three games over the weekend, including a split doubleheader Saturday with the opener scheduled to begin at 10:05 a.m. PT and the night game at 4:05 p.m. PT.
And beyond that, the Padres have to continue about the task of making up a half-dozen games in the standings. That is how far back they were in the wild-card race entering play Friday.
Friday’s victory, their third in a row and sixth in seven games, got the Padres back to three games under .500, at 44-47. It is the first time since June 24, when they were 37-40, that they have been that close to even.
Darvish, who had allowed at least three runs in four straight starts and gone six innings just once in that span, struck out nine and allowed one run while spreading out five hits and two walks Friday.
It was Darvish’s first quality start since June 3, when he shut out the Cubs over seven innings. He made three starts after that before being sidelined by a viral infection that caused him to go 15 days between starts. He lost eight pounds while enduring the infection and came back to pitch once before the break, yielding three runs in five innings against the Mets on July 7.
Tom Cosgrove and Nick Martinez worked a scoreless inning apiece before Luis García allowed a home run by JT Realmuto on the first pitch of the ninth and things unraveled to the point Hader had to come in with one out and the bases loaded to protect a five-run lead.
Hader struck out Trea Turner and got Nick Castellanos on a fly ball to shallow right field.
That was after extended a one-out single by Alex Bohm and Drew Ellis’ fly ball to the track in left field that fell to the ground after hitting Soto’s glove made it 8-3. And it was after García walked the next two batters to bring up Turner.
While Friday provided a fresh start for Darvish, Padres batters continued to hit as they had heading into the break.
In their surge from a season-high eight games below .500, the Padres have hit .266 with 12 home runs over their past seven games.
They actually have been hitting far batting since the start of June — .257/.339/.434 in the 35 games leading up to Friday compared to .220/.314/.381 in the season’s first 55 games.
Two homers in Friday’s third inning put the Padres up 3-0.
Leading off the third, Sánchez yanked an 0-2 change-up in the heart of the zone down the left field line just fair and just over the wall to give the Padres a 1-0 lead. A one-out walk by Trent Grisham was followed by Tatis sending a first-pitch change-up to the second deck beyond left field.
A pair of two-out doubles — by Bryson Stott and Bohm — got the Phillies their first run in the fourth inning.
Machado’s solo home run with two outs in the sixth inning was his seventh homer in a span of 33 at-bats and made it 4-1.
Doubles by Jake Cronenworth and Grisham, a walk by Sánchez and a RBI singles by Brandon Dixon and Ha-Seong Kim pushed the lead to 6-1 in the eighth.
A high flyball was lost in the twilight and fell between four Phillies defenders for Grisham’s second double of the night leading off the ninth, and Soto’s two-out home run made it 8-1.
