SAN DIEGO -- The Padres opened their weekend series against the Giants on Thursday night with perhaps their most lethargic game of the season. They committed three errors. They fell behind big early and never mounted a threat. Their playoff odds had faded behind a decimal point, and it was worth wondering what came next.

This, at least, was a heartening response.

The Padres beat the Giants 7-3 on Friday night at Petco Park. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Juan Soto launched back-to-back homers in the first inning. Michael Wacha pitched six innings of two-run ball. San Diego pounded out 13 hits, including at least one apiece from all nine starters.

“Yesterday was a tough game,” Soto said. “But like I’ve always been saying, we’ve got to forget about yesterday. We’ve got to think about the today, and we’ve got to come to play every day.”

Ultimately, the Padres’ reality remains harsh. For those still attuned to the standings, San Diego sits 7 1/2 games back of the Giants for the final Wild Card spot in the National League. One game -- no matter how electric Petco Park was, no matter how seamlessly everything clicked -- can only change that incrementally.

Still, Thursday’s series opener was such an outlier for these Padres that it made you wonder where this season might be headed. For all their faults this year, the Padres have at least been competitive throughout. They’ve lost every manner of close game, suffering every version of late-inning heartbreak. But they’ve at least fought.

Then came Thursday, and what manager Bob Melvin would call, “about as bad as we’ve played.” Really, a response like this was mandatory.

“We’re going out there with the same energy no matter what,” Tatis said when asked about the season’s final month. “We’re just going to go out there and give our best every single day.”

Wacha actually fell behind in the top of the first inning when Wilmer Flores launched a moonshot to the third deck of the Western Metal Building. But the Padres’ response was swift. Ha-Seong Kim led off the bottom half of the frame with a single, before Tatis elevated Beck’s cutter to the opposite field.

There was no showmanship off the bat. Tatis simply watched and hoped. He’d hit too many fly balls to the warning track recently to assume anything. But this one kept carrying, and landed just beyond the outstretched glove of Giants right fielder Mike Yastrzemski. The Padres led 2-1. Tatis threw up his arms in relief, then clapped his hands emphatically after he rounded first base.

“I hit it, and I said, ‘I don’t know, man,’” Tatis said. “I’ve hit balls 109, 108 [mph] to the warning track. I’m just glad that one went out.”

There would be no doubting the Soto home run that followed. He demolished a 432-footer off the center-field batter’s eye, his team-leading 26th homer of the year.

“We’ve got a guy on the mound that we feel really good about, and now all of a sudden it’s 1-0 – again, after yesterday’s game, which was poor for us,” Melvin said. “So to be able to respond in the first inning with three runs was huge.”

The Padres weren’t done. They scored again in the second and twice in the third. Wacha had another big lead to work with, and he wouldn’t let it go to waste. The veteran right-hander improved to 11-2 this season, and make no mistake, he’s been excellent. But whenever he takes the mound, the Padres' offense seems to mash. They’ve scored at least six runs in each of Wacha’s last five starts.

Staked to another lead, Wacha didn’t necessarily have his dominant stuff. But he’s consistently proven he has enough guile to get by without it. Wacha allowed six hits and two walks while striking out six. He threw a season-high 108 pitches, the last of which came with the bases loaded and the tying run at the plate in the sixth.

He’d ramped up to 96 mph for his two hardest pitches of the night with his 106th and 107th offerings -- fastballs just above the zone that ran the count full. Then, Wacha executed a changeup at the top of the zone that got Wade Meckler to pop harmlessly to short, ending the inning.

With that, the Padres were on their way to a character win that, even if it didn’t change much about the realities of their season, felt worlds better than the alternative.