This. This is how it's supposed to be. This is how we thought it would be more often than not in 2023. This could be the night the whole thing turns around ... or this could be just another outlier in what's been a frustrating season.
Whatever this is, it was awfully darn fun to take in.
Yu Darvish was masterful and Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a pair of home runs in a 6-0 win over the Cubs in front of 42,655 fans at Petco Park. In his last start Darvish gave up seven runs in 2.2 innings to the Yankees and just didn't have anything working. On Saturday night he had everything working.
Darvish tossed 7.0 shutout innings, allowing two hits and striking out nine on a season-high 115 pitches. The question, as it has often been this year, is would he get any run support? The answer was Fernando Tatis Jr.
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In the 3rd inning the San Diego superstar smashed a solo homer 430 feet to left-centerfield off Cubs lefty Drew Smyly. It was the 10th homer of the year for Tatis Jr. but as we've seen many times the 24-year-old tends to hit them in bunches. In the 8th inning, with two runners on, he ripped another home run to almost the same spot to stifle any thoughts Chicago may have had about a 9th inning comeback.
With those long balls, Tatis Jr. takes the team home run (11) and RBI (27) lead away from Juan Soto, even though Fernando has played 20 fewer games than his corner outfield mate. The Padres have had nights like this before but struggled to string them together. They'll try to keep the offense humming on Sunday afternoon against Marcus Stroman, who takes the ball for the Cubs against Padres lefty Ryan Weathers.
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