"Darren Balsley's trained eyes are usually trustworthy, but he still checks the scoreboard for confirmation.

The Padres pitching coach picked up on a promising pattern Tuesday afternoon: The more trouble Aaron Harang encountered, the harder he threw. Balsley could see a difference from the dugout, and then he'd look at the radar readout in left-center field and learn that Harang's heat had risen by two to three miles per hour.

He was reaching back for something extra and, more often than not, finding it.

"His fastball went from 89-90 (mph) to 91-92," Balsley said. "His slider, too (picked up steam). He seemed more aggressive. … But it wasn't just stuff. He executed."

Harang's 3-1 victory over the world champion San Francisco Giants was about as heartening a homecoming as he could have hoped. Freed from Cincinnati's Great American Broom Closet after an extensive bout with injuries and ineffectiveness, the local guy who once led the National League in strikeouts took the mound at Petco Park for the Padres' home opener and performed as if he had wandered into a time warp.

"This," Harang said, "was how I threw before. Hopefully, I can keep this rolling."

He struck out six, all of them swinging, and three of them with runners in scoring position. He rose to the ceremonial occasion before a sellout crowd with both grace and power under pressure.

"I think when you can get that done, it shows you how much of a veteran and how experienced he is," catcher Nick Hundley said. "When times are tough, he's cool. He made the best pitches of the day when he was in trouble (and) I think that says a lot about his makeup and his character.

"You love to see guys (who) when the chips are on the table, they're all in."

Though it is risky to attach too much significance to a single April start, it was easy to attach heroic qualities to Harang Tuesday. He was at his best when things looked most bleak - when the Giants brought the top of their lineup up to bat with two on and no one out in the third inning - and he did so without an unseemly reliance on Petco's pitcher-friendly dimensions."