ATLANTA -- The Padres can take plenty of positives from their 7-6 loss to the Braves on Wednesday night at Truist Park.
Except ... this isn’t the time for that.
The National League Wild Card picture is tightening. Every loss puts a dent in the Padres’ playoff chances. They are running out of time to assert themselves as contenders ahead of the Aug. 3 Trade Deadline.
Here are some takeaways from Truist Park, where San Diego surrendered six late runs -- then responded with five. It wasn’t enough.
Agonizingly close
Trailing, 7-1, in the ninth, the Padres refused to go down easily. Luis Rengifo, batting second in the lineup on Wednesday, took Braves closer Raisel Iglesias deep for a two-run homer, cutting the deficit to one. Iglesias slammed the door after that.
You could say it’s a positive that San Diego forced Iglesias into the game at all. You could say it’s a positive that this offense continued to put runs on the board. (It’s been a top-10 offense since mid-June, after it was the worst in Major League Baseball for 2 1/2 months.) You could say it’s a positive that Jackson Merrill launched his fourth homer in four games and has come to life at the plate.
All of those things are true. And yet ... the Padres dropped another game to another contender. They now find themselves three games back in the NL Wild Card race.
That’s not an insurmountable burden, especially considering the circumstances. The Padres are 19-31 in their last 50 games. They’ve fallen two games below .500 (50-52) overall. Yet, they’re still in the mix. For now.
“We’ve got to start stringing together some wins,” starter Michael King said. “It’s crazy, because I think of how poorly we’ve played, and I look, and we’re three games back. Coming into today, it was two games back.
“We’ve played terribly. And if we get on a little bit of a run, it’s still very attainable.”
These bullpen absences are looming large
King was lifted before the bottom of the seventh inning with the game tied at 1. At various points in their season, the Padres could’ve felt reasonably confident that their bullpen would hold things in check from there.
Right now? Not so much. The Padres still have Mason Miller and Adrian Morejon at the back end. But Jason Adam, Jeremiah Estrada and David Morgan are all on the IL. And with a heavy workload for rookie Bradgley Rodriguez lately, the Padres didn’t quite have the cover they needed for the final three frames.
Morejon worked in and out of trouble in a scoreless seventh. Manager Craig Stammen went to Wandy Peralta for the bottom of Atlanta's order in the eighth. But the Braves were all over him. They were all over Randy Vásquez, too, albeit mostly with seeing-eye hits.
“We just had one bad inning on the mound in the eighth that just didn’t go our way,” Stammen said. “Wandy wasn’t very sharp. And then a bunch of unlucky hits against Randy, is what I’ll say there.”
King grinds his way through
It’s been a season full of these kinds of outings for King. He wasn’t his sharpest on Wednesday. He wasn’t all that efficient. His command was erratic early. But he made it work. Somehow.
King walked the first three Braves he faced. Overall, he walked four and allowed five hits. And yet, somehow, King limited Atlanta's offense to just one run across six innings.
“Just gritted his teeth and gutted one out and gave us six innings,” Stammen said. “It was a pretty impressive outing, honestly.”
King is hard on himself. He’s made it clear that he views himself as an ace. He’s also made it clear that he doesn’t believe he’s lived up to that billing this season.
But here are the facts: King is the one holding this rotation together right now. He’s the only Padres starting pitcher to work six innings in a game since June 5 -- and he’s done so six times.
No, this is not King at his dominant best. This is not the version of King who looked like a Cy Young contender down the stretch in the 2024 season. But he has a 3.24 ERA and hasn’t missed a start. The Padres will absolutely take that.
“It’s a talent to be able to do that -- to not have your best stuff and still give your team a chance to win,” Stammen said. “Eventually, hopefully, he gets on a roll, like we’ve seen Michael do. But in the end, the results are pretty darn good.”