SAN DIEGO -- The Padres, who whiffed on landing a much-needed starting pitcher at the Trade Deadline, added an All-Star on Saturday night: Yu Darvish.

Sure, he’s been on the roster all along, but the Padres haven’t had this Yu Darvish -- the ace Yu Darvish, the All-Star Yu Darvish -- in more than a month.

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The return of this Yu Darvish coincided with the Padres’ return to the win column, a 6-2 victory over the D-backs at Petco Park that ended a two-game slide. Manny Machado drove home an actual Trade Deadline pickup, Adam Frazier, with the go-ahead run in the eighth inning before the Padres added three more runs in the frame.

Darvish struck out 12 batters while limiting the D-backs to two runs and four hits over seven innings. He issued no walks and threw 69 strikes among his 93 pitches but came away with a no-decision.

“I feel like everything is starting to come back together,” Darvish said through an interpreter. “I’m able to be myself.”

The 12 strikeouts matched Darvish’s season high (April 30 vs. the Giants) and marked his fourth double-digit strikeout game of the season. He threw a first-pitch strike to 15 of 25 batters faced and ran the count to 0-2 against eight of them. Darvish induced 15 whiffs with a five-pack of pitches (slider, cutter, four-seam fastball, splitter and sinker).

The only blemish for Darvish was a no-doubt, two-run home run by Christian Walker in the second inning. (The Padres got solo homers from Machado and Eric Hosmer to keep things square.) Darvish quickly put that mistake behind him.

“He did what aces do,” Padres manager Jayce Tingler said. “He shook it off and almost said, ‘That’s all you get from here,’ and continued to execute pitches. That’s exactly what you want to see from all your guys, but that’s what top-line pitchers do.

“If they do give up some runs early, that’s all you get. And that’s what he did.”

Machado was more succinct.

“He threw the [snot] out of the ball today,” Machado said.

The Padres haven’t seen this dominant version of Darvish since June, as he pitched his way onto the National League All-Star squad. But he didn’t participate in the All-Star festivities after landing on the injured list because of tightness in his lower back and hip.

Darvish rested over the break but lost his form and suffered an ugly July: 0-4 with a 7.36 ERA, his highest ERA for any full calendar month in his career. But he put that in the rearview mirror Saturday.

“I felt pretty good all along,” Darvish said. “I just wasn’t able to hit my spots in certain games. Again, I feel like everything’s coming together.”

Just in time for the Padres, too. As the postseason push grows in intensity -- the Padres hold the second NL Wild Card spot -- there are going to be more and more pressure moments, high-intensity innings. The Padres’ failure to land a frontline starter last month means many of those innings will go to the bullpen.

That crew has been equal to the task all season and will be reinforced by Daniel Hudson and Dinelson Lamet in the coming days. But it will be important to get a deep start or two from Darvish, Joe Musgrove and Blake Snell each trip through the rotation so the bullpen is rested when it’s needed in the playoff-type moments down the stretch.

“There’s a reason those guys are starters,” Tingler said. “Those are some of your better pitchers. So it is important that your better pitchers are out there chewing up innings, quality innings, meaningful innings, getting deep into games when they have their ‘A’ stuff going.”

Or A+ stuff, in Darvish’s case on Saturday.