Braves at Padres series recap: Consistently calamitous in California

Death. Taxes. This current era of the Atlanta Braves having nearly nothing go right for them whenever they’re in California. Petco Park has especially turned into a house of horrors for the Braves, as Atlanta has now lost nine straight games on the road against the Padres (if you’re including the 2024 NL Wild Card series) and haven’t looked particular inspiring in most of them.
What makes the following recap so disappointing is the fact that the Braves were heading into this series buoyed by the success that they had against the NL Central-leading Brewers during their most recent series at home. Now granted, the Braves did drop the final game of that series in ugly fashion but at the same time, the Braves kind of made that a habit during their successful run earlier this season. A series win is a series win, especially against a top-tier team like Milwaukee.
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Unfortunately, the momentum did not carry over from Cobb County to California and now, things are back to looking bleak after a brief weekend respite. Let’s go ahead and get into this series.
Michael King had been having a rough go of it on the mound for San Diego as he had come into this start having given up at least three runs in each of his past five starts. I’d have to imagine that his eyes lit up once he saw those navy blue “A” hats and the jerseys with the tomahawks across the chest because those seem to always inspire confidence in the San Diego hurler.
It felt a lot like 2024 on this particular night as Atlanta was unable to really get anything going against King as he tossed seven strong innings. Meanwhile, Atlanta’s pitching staff did a tremendous job of making San Diego’s lineup scuffle as well and we ended up having a predictable pitchers’ duel in Petco Park. Grant Holmes was once again unable to get deep into a start and while he did a great job of limiting San Diego’s damage, it was certainly annoying to see him give up a dinger to the currently-struggling Manny Machado
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As such, since Atlanta’s offense was unable to make anything happen in response to the Machado homer, the Braves ended up having to deal with Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller, which meant that the Braves ended up losing by one run.
I’m not going to lie to you, the second inning of this game felt a LOT like 2025 when this team was seemingly allergic to success. That was when something truly rare for the Braves at Petco Park happened for them: A big inning. Atlanta put up four (yes, four!) runs in the second inning with Rowdy Tellez plating two RBI on a single, Michael Harris II smacking a double that brought in Drake Baldwin and Matt Olson welcoming Kyle Hart into the game (who inherited a bases-loaded mess from Griffin Canning) by walking the bases loaded. Atlanta was up 4-0 in the second inning! Life was good! I could taste colors! I could see sounds!
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Then it was almost as if the Braves remembered the stadium and state that they were playing in and things went to pot almost immediately afterwards. In the immediate next frame, JR Ritchie proceeded to have a nightmare inning after getting the leadoff runner out. The next six runners all reached base safely as two consecutive walks turned into a horror inning for Ritchie. Once the smoke cleared, a four-run lead had quickly turned into a one-run deficit and frustration abounded in the visitors’ dugout.
Fortunately, Atlanta did respond after Ozzie Albies cashed in a Money Mike single by cracking a double to tie the game up and then Mauricio Dubón came up big yet again as he hit a dinger at Yuki Matsui’s expense to put Atlanta back in front.

However, this is California (and it’s Petco Park in particular) which means that the good times couldn’t possibly last for long. Carlos Carrasco ended up getting pressed into duty for two innings in this one and the second inning is when the other shoe finally dropped. Fernando Tatis Jr. came into this series with a grand total of two (2) homers across the entire season. He left this series with three, as his third homer of 2026 was hit off of Cookie Carrasco and it tied the game at six. The Braves ended up having to deal with Adrian Morejon and (two innings of) Mason Miller, which meant that the Braves ended up losing by one run in extras after Manny Machado (of course) walked it off.
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The Braves did not have to deal with Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller since they were both down, but nonetheless, they were unable to make anything happen against David Morgan, Wandy Peralta and Jason Adam so the Braves ended up losing and getting swept in a three-game series for the first time all season. Joey Bart hit a home runs off of JP Sears in order to chase him from the game, so that was cool. Other than that, this was a fitting end to yet another horror show of a series in San Diego for the Braves.

Yep, there’s no sugarcoating this. This is some bad baseball being played by the Braves at the moment. Never mind the fact that Petco Park has suddenly turned into a nightmare factory for Atlanta, the Braves are in a serious funk right now and it’s honestly starting to get annoying. It’s one thing to go through a slump like this — it happens to all teams and if it didn’t, we’d regularly see the best teams win around 120 games and winning 100 wouldn’t really be anything special. With that being said, it’s starting to get really concerning!
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The Braves just need a spark right now and while there are plenty of candidates on this team who are clearly capable of doing something to really get the rest of the team going, it’s hard to see who’s going to do it at the moment. It also doesn’t help that any time the offense makes something happen, the Braves end up in a situation like we saw on Tuesday when any good times are extremely short-lived and they’re back in the mud again. Whether it’s the inconsistent offense or the unreliable starting pitching, there’s a lot that needs to be fixed at the moment.
Whatever the case may be, things have got to get fixed and soon. Considering how far ahead the Braves were in the standings not all that long ago, it’s actually kind of wild that it’s very much possible that the Phillies may catch and possibly even surpass the Braves in the NL East race soon. Atlanta still has the upper hand but if this continues for much longer, the once-inconceivable could happen and Atlanta could have a fight on their hands with not even the All-Star break having passed yet. That’s how quickly things have changed in this division and if the Braves want to avoid the nightmare scenario, they will have to find their groove quickly.
Unfortunately, there’s still one more California series left in this road trip which means that things could very get worse before they get better. There was a time when a series against the team of San Francisco’s caliber would’ve had both the team and the fans licking their chops at what’s to come. Now, it just feels like there’s a sense of foreboding doom at the moment. Again, it’s just a moment but it sure would be nice to see the Braves break out of this slump as soon as possible. I genuinely thought that we might’ve seen Atlanta break out of it with that series win against the first-place Brewers but the California nightmare has ensured that this slump continues for at least another few games.
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