Lightly cleaned up from the auto-transcription for readability — one spot flagged below where a word was unclear.

Anchor: You’re watching the Fox 5 Morning News. The Padres’ new ownership group is getting ready to introduce themselves to the fans. Today’s announcement comes as the Padres are pushing to make the playoffs. Joining us now, once again, Matt from 97.3 The Fan to break it all down. Matt, good morning!

Matt: Good morning.

Anchor: You’re at that point now — you officially get the screaming sports voice.

Matt: I appreciate that, thank you. It means I made it. Is that what that means?

Anchor: It does. The Padres are red hot this month. Holy moly. After the All-Star Game, it’s just been a different team. What happened?

Matt: I feel like they woke up and said, “Hey, it’s time to play baseball again.” It’s been a very strange year — they’ve been good, they’ve been bad, they’ve been really bad, they’ve been decent, they’ve been great. And fortunately, right now they’re great. What’s changed is they’re starting to hit, and the players who are superstars are starting to become superstars. Fernando Tatis Jr. — I know we’ll talk about him a little later — but Jackson Merrill is starting to hit too. Ever since the All-Star break he’s had a ton of home runs, up to 20 on the season now, which is a huge number for a guy like him. And the pitching is doing well — the bullpen is doing well, Mason Miller is still doing well. So everything we talked about coming into the year is finally paying off for the Padres, and it’s coming together at the perfect time, right when you want it to happen — the last couple of weeks.

Anchor: Yeah, it’s the old saying — you get hot at the right time, anything can happen. The Padres are now in third place in the wild card race, two games ahead of the Diamondbacks. And those doggone Phillies — I mean, what do they want? That comeback win, I think it was yesterday — what in the world was that? Down four with two outs, and they score six. Woo.

Matt: Yeah, it’s happened a couple times here the last two weeks or so in baseball. But the Phillies are a team I’m always scared of, just because they have guys like Kyle Schwarber who can hit a ball 450 feet dead center to win a game — that ball never even came down. But the Phillies are a team the Padres can’t afford to tie with, because the Phillies won every game against the Padres this year. So if they end up with the same record at the end of the season, the Phillies go to the playoffs and the Padres don’t. We’ve got to hope the Phillies start losing.

Anchor: Let’s talk about Tatis. We saw the stats yesterday during the game — his numbers since the All-Star break are at the top, or near the top, of every offensive category. And that catch against the Mets — that’s going to be spoken of in Padres lore forever. Tell me about that catch, and what it meant on that stage for this guy.

Matt: Fernando isn’t really a flashy guy — he doesn’t love attention. But when he does stuff like that, he’s just cool. He just knows how to do it — he stands there, his hat falls off, and he flips the ball to himself. What Fernando needs to be is Fernando — making plays like that, doing great things on the field, providing energy. What he did there didn’t just save the Padres from giving up four runs — it saved this team from possibly going back into that dugout thinking, “man, this isn’t our year.” Fernando has done everything he can. He hit four home runs last week, had over ten RBIs, he’s hitting .480 over the last seven days. Monster numbers. It’s crazy — I think the kids call that “aura.” It’s something I need to learn.

Anchor: Wait a minute — you say Fernando’s not flashy? [unclear — possibly “bro is so flashy”] What do you mean, he’s not — like, in real life, you mean?

Matt: Yeah, yeah — he’s very unassuming off the field. When he does things on the field, he’s flashy, he’s good, he does the stutter step, stuff like that. But for the most part he’s kind of an unassuming guy. When you see him off the field, he’s not someone who wants attention — he just goes along with his daily life. He’s been incredible to watch these two months. Remember all those people who wanted to get rid of him? That was never me. I was always defending him — he wasn’t hitting home runs, but he was hitting .280 or something when the whole team was batting .150. Now what’s he doing? Hitting home runs. I’m telling you what fixed it —

Anchor: We told him to fix it, make the adjustment. Yes, we did. It was us. It was us — we said, “Fernando, fix the thing.” I sent our video clip to the Padres and that was it. Ever since then, it’s been better. We’ll take that credit.

Anchor: Let’s talk Casey Mize. He walked off — they thought it was one thing, it was another, and then he injured his ankle going down the steps. How’s he doing?

Matt: He said he’s feeling okay. I’m really happy it was just an ankle — when he was with the Tigers, he had a groin injury they thought was this. Everybody thought that, no one saw him falling in the dugout. He said he’ll possibly make his next start — I wouldn’t be surprised if they hold him out one more, but it doesn’t seem like anything that’ll affect them long term.

Anchor: New owners — talk to me. This deal went through, everybody voted, everything’s hunky-dory. What’s going to happen?

Matt: Today we’re going to meet the owners, Jose Feliciano and Kwanza Jones. I haven’t met them or talked to them, but everyone I’ve talked to who’s been part of these discussions says they’re the right people for this team, and they’re saying the stuff we want them to say — that they love San Diego, they want to bring a championship to town. I also thought the exit of the Seidler family was very classy — they said these are the people Peter would have wanted to take over the team if he had to make a decision. So we, as Padres fans, got really lucky to have owners who seemingly care about the city and the team. It could have been a private equity group that just saw it as a business. But for these owners, it seems like it’s going to be more than that — they want to put their name on San Diego.

Anchor: What do you think they’re actually going to say this afternoon? I mean, of course they’re going to say “we’re here to win a World Series, we love the city” — but what do you expect them to actually address the fans with today?

Matt: I expect them to tell the fans they’re going to invest in this team — that they’re not going to take money away from the payroll. I’m not expecting them to say they’ll increase the payroll, but I think what we’ll hear today is that they’re here to support this team. They paid $3.9 billion for it — they’re not going to let it go to waste. I expect we’ll see a vision from them that makes us feel good about the direction of the Padres.

Anchor: Do they want to buy that team renting the stadium in L.A. and bring them back?

Matt: I would love it. That would be great.

Anchor: Can we have a Petco Park Chargers game?

Matt: I don’t know. I don’t know if it fits.

Anchor: Matt, 97.3 The Fan — thank you, as always.

Matt: Thank you.