SAN DIEGO _ Andy Green wanted no part of the talk Monday afternoon about the San Diego Padres being tested or measured or in any way assessed by how they played against a good team now that they had beaten a couple bad teams.
Regardless, having proved last week that they were better than the two worst teams in the National League, the Padres went out and clobbered the team with the NL's second-best record.
With solo home runs in four different innings and one inning in which they scored seven runs on four doubles, a triple and a single, they beat the Atlanta Braves, 11-4.
The Padres are 6-2 on this homestand, having won three of four from the Marlins and two of three from the Reds before the NL East-leading Braves arrived at Petco Park for a three-game series.
With the first-place Arizona Diamondbacks losing Monday, the Padres (28-34) are just 4 { games out in the NL West. The last time they were this close to the top of the division was this late in a season was June 23, 2015.
This surge may just be a temporary diversion in a season the Padres all along have fully expected to be mostly about discovering which of their current players merit being around when the organization expects to be good in a couple years.
"It's (about) going out, playing good baseball and trying to improve," Green said prior to the game. "... I try to focus on us growing and coming together as a team."
Things continued to come together on the field for the Padres, who are 18-14 since May 1 after ending April at 10-20.
It came together quickly. And pretty much throughout the first six innings.
Eric Hosmer, the Padres' second batter, crushed a fastball 433 feet to right-center to give the Padres a 1-0 lead.
Cory Spangenberg's homer to right made it 2-0 in the second inning.
The Braves tied the game with two one-out singles and Charlie Culberson's two-out double in the top of the fourth. They added another run in the sixth off Padres starter Clayton Richard (4-6), who went seven innings for the fifth time in his past six starts.
By that time _ even though Phil Hughes allowed a run on three hits in the ninth _ the result was a foregone conclusion.
Raffy Lopez's home run leading off the bottom of the fourth gave the Padres a lead they never surrendered. And a six-hit, two-walk, 11-batter, seven-run fifth inning chased Braves starter Julio Teheran (4-4) and the reliever (Luiz Gohara) who replaced him.
It was the Padres' biggest inning of the season. And when Franmil Reyes homered to lead off the sixth, they had tied their season high for home runs set 10 days earlier.
