SAN FRANCISCO >> The month of May was good to Robbie Ray.

So far, June looks no different.

Ray matched his season-best strikeout total, passed Paul Skenes on the National League leaderboard and powered the Giants to a split in their four-game series with the Padres on Thursday. In his first start since being named the National League’s pitcher of the month, Ray struck out nine over seven innings in a 3-2 win.

Newcomer Dom Smith knocked in a pair with a ground-rule double that capped a three-run third inning to give San Francisco the lead, and Camilo Doval bounced back from his blown save in Tuesday’s loss by stranding the tying run on third base for his eighth save in 11 opportunities.

All four games of the series were decided by one run, with the Giants picking up their 13th such win of the season, tied for the MLB lead.

Ray froze Martin Maldonado with a 95 mph fastball for the second out of the fifth inning and his final strikeout of the afternoon, which gave him 87 for the year, trailing only teammate Logan Webb (91) and three others for the most in the National League. Ray’s 8-1 record is also the best in the majors, while his 2.44 ERA isn’t far off.

Come July, the 33-year-old left-hander just might find himself in Atlanta.

Ray has been an All-Star only once — representing the Diamondbacks for the National League in 2017 — but is putting together his best case to participate in the midsummer classic since at least his 2021 Cy Young campaign with the Toronto Blue Jays.

The lone runs he allowed to the Padres came on one swing from Manny Machado, who deposited a hanging breaking ball into the left-field bleachers to open a 2-0 lead in the third inning. But Ray responded by retiring the next 12 hitters and faced the minimum over the remainder of his seven innings.

The home run was the first allowed by Ray in eight starts and snapped the longest homerless streak of his career. Before Machado’s two-run blast, no opponent had taken Ray deep since Caleb Durbin’s solo shot in the second inning on April 21, a stretch of 51 innings.

It was the eighth straight time Ray has completed at least six innings, going seven in five of those outings. Dating back to April 21, the last time he went fewer than six innings, Ray has a 1.70 ERA and 62 strikeouts while limiting opponents to a .175 batting average over 53 innings.

The Giants began the season by winning the first nine games Ray started but had lost two of the past three times he’d taken the mound, scraping together four total runs across the three games.

They had been held to four or fewer runs in 16 straight games before breaking out in a 6-5 win Wednesday but responded with just enough offense to climb out of the 2-0 hole Machado put them in in the third.