ATLANTA — Because baseball is a funny game, the Padres scored three runs against Chris Sale in the second inning on Thursday.
Because Sale is one of baseball’s best starting pitchers year after year after year and Griffin Canning is a pitcher far less good than that, the Padres soon trailed and could not come all the way back.
A 6-5 defeat in the finale of their four-game series against the Braves was the Padres’ the fifth loss in seven games on a road trip their front office is using to gauge whether they have a roster worth improving at the trade deadline.
One of the players they might end up trading away, Ty France, hit a home run that got the Padres to within a run in the eighth inning.
So the difference ended up being the home run Drake Baldwin hit off Matt Waldron in the seventh inning.
That and the dominance of Sale after the Padres’ big inning.
Sale allowed one baserunner over his final four innings, finished with 11 strikeouts and improved to 5-0 in his career against the Padres despite the injustice of having his season ERA inflate to 2.19.
Canning allowed five runs in 2⅔ innings, which brought his season total against the Braves to nine runs in 3⅓ innings and raised his season ERA to 6.97.
Sale, whose 94 career games are seventh most in major league history and four fewer than Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax, entered the game with a 2.06 ERA. While that was second lowest among qualifying major league starters, it did not serve to illustrate his dominance.
Of the 24 earned runs the left-hander had allowed this season, six came in his third start, on April 6 against the Angels. In his other 17 starts, he had a 1.60 ERA. Just three times in his 15 starts since April 6 had he allowed three runs.
He still has not allowed four.
Manny Machado’s two-out single interrupted Sale striking out the side in the first inning on 16 pitches.
He was not nearly as sharp in the second, and a misplayed fly ball cost him.
Xander Bogaerts got under a curveball hung up in the zone and flied out to start the inning before Gavin Sheets grounded a single up the middle and Freddy Fermin appeared to have made the second out.
After sending the first pitch he saw high in the air to shallow left field, Fermin slammed his bat to the ground before jogging toward first base. But left fielder Mauricio Dubón took a step back before running up futilely as Fermin’s ball dropped to the grass.
Sale hit Jake Cronenworth with an 0-1 sinker to load the bases before Fernando Tatis Jr. worked a walk to bring in the Padres’ first run. Among the work Tatis did was winning a challenge on a called strike that got him to three balls.
Luis Rengifo followed by slicing a slider that was barely above his ankles into right-center field to drive in two runs before Machado struck out.
The Braves cut the deficit to 3-1 two pitches later, as Michael Harris II began the bottom of the second inning by sending a fastball 420 feet to right field.
Canning went on to retire the next six batters before retiring two of his final seven.
The Braves’ four-run fourth inning began with Ozzie Albies hitting a home run before Canning got an out, allowed a single and had a runner reach on catcher interference, got another out and then left a changeup in the heart of the strike zone that Dominic Smith sent over the wall in right field.
Another single ended Canning’s day.
Yuki Matsui got through the fifth, and Waldron worked a scoreless sixth before Drake Baldwin hit a solo homer with one out in the seventh to make it 6-3.
Between Rengifo’s two-run single in the second and his strikeout to begin the eighth inning, made 17 outs in a span of 18 batters.
Manny Machado’s one-out single preceded France’s sixth home run in nine games.
Danny Young retired the next two batters, and the Padres mounted a final rally against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias when Cronenworth and Tatis singled with two outs in the ninth before Rengifo struck out.