The San Diego Padres entered Monday night’s game against the San Francisco Giants with a 9-18 record in the last 27 games. The day before, Blake Snell exited the game in the first inning with a groin injury, thus forcing manager Jayce Tingler to use six relievers in San Diego’s 8-0 loss.
The last thing the Padres could afford was to use their bullpen like that on back to back days. So, when Yu Darvish gave up five runs in the first inning, he had to take one for the team. Darvish ended up going four innings and allowed eight earned runs, which included surrendering four home runs (two in the first and two in the fourth).