ATLANTA — Chris Paddack was tired of waiting until after he was bad to be good.
“I haven’t had a start where I haven’t let up a run,” he said late last Friday night in Washington after another outing where he got in trouble early. “I want to get back to that dominance.”
The Padres right-hander went out Wednesday afternoon and threw five scoreless innings at the start of a 3-2 victory over the Braves. (box score.)
The seven-inning game was the first of two the teams will play Wednesday. The second game is scheduled to begin at 2:20 p.m. PT.
Not since June 22, a span of 21 games, had a Padres starting pitcher gone at least five innings without allowing a run. Wednesday was the third game in a row a Padres starter went at least five innings after doing so once in the seven games before that.
Paddack actually had a scoreless start this season, but it was a three-inning outing in his first start coming off the injured list May 9 in San Francisco.
He had allowed three runs in the first inning in each of his previous three starts. The big inning sunk him several times, as he allowed five or more runs in five starts.
He threw just 77 pitches Wednesday before being lifted for a pinch-hitter with two runners on in the top of the sixth.
The Braves scored two runs off Drew Pomeranz in the bottom of the sixth. Freddie Freeman singled and went to third on Ozzie Albies’ double. Freeman ran home and Albies advanced to third when Pomeranz’s next pitch, a curveball that seemed to surprise catcher Victor Caratini, bounced off Caratini’s glove for a passed ball. Austin Riley’s sacrifice fly scored Albies to make it 3-2.
Mark Melancon set the Braves down in order in the seventh for his major league-leading 28th save.
For the opener, which began early on a muggy Georgia afternoon a little more than 14 hours after Tuesday night’s game ended, the Padres rested a few starters got big days from the subs. One of them prevented three hits and drove in the game’s first run, and the other scored the game’s first run and dove to rob a hit.
And Fernando Tatis Jr. drilled a two-run homer to the seats beyond left field that staked Paddack to a 3-0 lead in the fifth inning. It was Tatis’ National League-leading 29th home run but his first in 33 at-bats, a season-long run without one.
The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the fourth inning when Jurickson Profar, starting on place of Trent Grisham in center field, sailed a double off the bricks atop the tall right field wall, went to third on a wild pitch and scored on Ha-seong Kim’s sacrifice fly.
Kim, starting at second base while Jake Cronenworth moved to first base in place of resting Eric Hosmer, twice took possible hits from Freeman. He also dove to his left to nab a 103 mph grounder and throw out Dansby Swanson, preventing a single with a runner on third base with two outs in the third inning.
In the fifth inning, with a runner on first base, Profar sprinted in 102 feet to shallow left-center and laid out on the grass to catch a fly ball by Abraham Almonte for the second out.
