CINCINNATI -- Up until Tuesday, the Padres’ pitching staff and defense had carried the load during the opening month of the season. Holding teams to few runs with a stingy defense, it’d been their performance offensively that left plenty to be desired.\n\nHeading into Tuesday night’s game against the Reds, the Padres were batting just .221 on the season -- good for 21st in the Majors -- while leading the Majors defensively with a .997 fielding percentage, and sitting in the middle of the Majors with a 3.52 ERA.\n\nThe Padres defeated the struggling Reds Tuesday night, in a 9-6 victory to begin their eight game road trip. The San Diego offense erupted, tallying 12 hits, and remaining undefeated this season against their National League foes. Cincinnati had ended an 11-game losing streak just two nights before, including a streak of 99 consecutive innings without holding a lead at the end of the frame.\n\nCincinnati starting pitcher Reiver Sanmartin competed well in his first inning of work before running into problems soon thereafter. In the bottom of the third inning, Sanmartin allowed a solo home run to Ha-Seong Kim, which was just the start to San Diego’s two-inning long slugfest.
The very next inning, the Padres rallied for seven consecutive hits off Sanmartin, knocking him out of the game, and putting an eight spot on the scorecard. Their half of the inning saw 12 Padres come to the plate, forcing Cincinnati manager David Bell to make an early pitching change.\n\nGetting a heavy dose of Sanmartin’s sinker ball -- which he threw 29% of the time, according to Statcast -- San Diego manager Bob Melvin said his hitters were waiting in the count for pitches they could elevate, and they eventually got them.\n\n“The at-bats just seemed to get better the more we strung him along and passed the ball to the next guy,” Melvin said.\n\nMelvin, along with first baseman