ATLANTA — In what could have gone down as a reminder that there’s still time to salvage their season, the San Diego Padres challenged a first-place club Monday night and almost came out ahead.

Almost. Not much separated the Padres from the Atlanta Braves, who emerged with a 3-2 win in the opener of a critical four-game series at Truist Park.

Ultimately, a single run. A catcher’s interference that preceded a go-ahead double in the bottom of the fifth. Dueling oh-fers with runners in scoring position, even as the Padres outhit their hosts 7-4.

The Braves, after all, are not so different. They entered the series having lost 20 of their past 32 games. Their rotation, outside of Chris Sale, is in shambles. Monday’s starter, Bryce Elder, had an 8.47 ERA over his previous seven outings.

What ensued felt like a fitting encapsulation of the 2026 Padres. A day after pouring in a season-high 19 runs while avoiding a sweep by the last-place Kansas City Royals, they hit a pair of solo home runs off Elder but otherwise posed little threat. Meanwhile, they wasted an unexpected performance by JP Sears, who provided five efficient innings despite feeling under the weather.

“I mean, that’s kind of how the season’s gone, right?” said first baseman Ty France. “Pitching shows up, (and) we don’t score enough. We score a lot, (and) we give up a lot.”

And now, there isn’t much time left. Exactly two weeks before the trade deadline, the Padres (49-51) could have used Monday’s game to make a stand. They instead lost for the 33rd time in 53 games. Unlike the Braves (58-41), they have virtually no margin for error.

Still, after the game, Padres manager Craig Stammen attempted to put things in a broader perspective.

“If you’re looking at just the trade deadline, yeah, these games are important,” Stammen said. “But I don’t think it’s like the season’s over if you lose a game before the trade deadline. There’s going to be 50 games past the trade deadline that are equally as important as these (12 games left before the deadline). And so we’re focused on finishing the season well, not just to the trade deadline.”

That message doesn’t seem to be resonating. Inside the latest post-loss clubhouse, multiple players sat at their lockers in silence, staring at their phones or blankly ahead. The team’s playoff odds, according to FanGraphs, had sunk to a season-low 8 percent.

Rival scouts have increasingly trained their attention on Padres games, preparing for scenarios in which president of baseball operations A.J. Preller sells at a trade deadline for the first time in seven years. The primary targets are obvious; pitchers Mason Miller, Adrian Morejon and Michael King could be deployed to replenish a largely barren farm system. France, who homered Monday for the fifth time in six games, has turned himself into another useful chip.

With the Padres’ playoff odds growing faint, rival teams are scouting Mason Miller and other trade candidates on the roster. (Orlando Ramirez / Getty Images)

But this season has gone awry in more ways than the record.

Potential free agents Ramón Laureano, Jason Adam and Nick Pivetta are either out for the year or rehabbing in hopes of late-summer comebacks. Miguel Andujar joined them Sunday when he suffered a fractured wrist; the Padres hope the infielder, another pending free agent, can return sometime in August.

If the Padres end up selling players at the deadline, they must acquire big-league-ready or near-ready starting pitching as part of the return. King, the only San Diego pitcher to complete at least six innings in any game since June 4, can opt out of his contract after the World Series. If he does, the Padres would no longer have the option of making him a qualifying offer, having already done so before he re-signed last offseason.

It might still be a bit early to seriously consider trading anyone. Since 2019, the last year he sold during a season, Preller has not made a significant July or early August move sooner than four days before a trade deadline.

In all likelihood, the Padres will again postpone final decisions until close to the end. Perhaps no team is as reliant on maintaining robust attendance, both this season and next. For now, a full sell-off seems improbable. A combination of buying and selling, even if the club continues to falter, is on the table.

At the same time, a third option — all buying and no selling — appears to be growing faint. With the rotation in tatters, those in uniform face an unmistakable challenge: The Padres must hit their way to the deadline.

“It’s in there,” France said. “We just need to find a way to be more consistent with it, and you know, we kind of got to figure it out fast.”