Coming into Saturday, the Padres have had a disaster of a season. They have struggled at the plate and the mound all season. Today the bats of Tatis, Machado, and Soto helped them get 12 runs which would help them get their first win in a week. Machado who has had a career-low type of year had 2 home runs while Soto and Tatis combined for 7 RBIs. Michael Wacha had a solid start only giving up 1 run in 5 innings of work. The bulk of the runs given up was by reliever Luis Garcia who has been struggling all season. He gave up 4 earned runs. 

Here are three takeaways from today’s game:

Getting what you paid for

Today was something Padre fans had been expecting to see all season. Their all-star players were doing all-star things today. All season most of the bats have been underwhelming. With such a good team on paper, the fans and front office expected this type of production every night. That has not been the case for the team so hopefully they can turn this game into some momentum and have the confidence that they can have this type of production on most days. 

Bullpen Concerns

Even though the bullpen was overshadowed today by the high volume of offense they still had their struggles. Bob Melvin had hoped today to get reliever Luis Garcia going having a big lead. Even with the big lead he still managed to give up 4 runs in only 1 inning of work. He will most likely be sent down or dfa’ed in the next couple of days in hopes of reviving what he had last year. 

Building off of Today

The Padres should look to build off of today. Today they had a solid starting pitching performance with great hitting. That has been a rare feat for the team this year. If the bats can get consistent the team can turn it around. The relief pitching has been shaky all year but if they can have one solid week of play heading into the break it would be huge for turning their season around.

The Padres will finish the series vs the Reds tomorrow at 10:40 p.m. PT.