This four-game series certainly didn't start on a positive note, but it certainly ended that way. The Braves went yicketty on the Padres, winning three of the four games and hitting six home runs; they also scored exactly six runs in each of their three wins, shutting out the Padres twice.
It'll certainly be memorable for Chipper Jones. He jacked two home runs on Chipper Bobblehead Day on Thursday, the second of which was his 2,700th career hit. The home runs were 465 and 466 of his career, passing Dave Winfield, and were two of his five hits in the series.
San Diego threw a soft-tossing lefty in Eric Stults at the Braves in the first game and, not surprisingly, he gave them all sorts of trouble. Stults pitched into the eighth inning and gave up only one run of a 4-1 Padres victory.
Martin Prado had a streak of four straight multi-hit games snapped in the final game of the series, gathering nine hits in that stretch covering 17 at-bats. One of those hits was a three-run homer in the second game; it was his first home run since June 20 and his sixth of the season. He also hit a triple that helped prevent Atlanta from being shut out in the opening game of the series.
Also smashing long balls were Jason Heyward and Dan Uggla. Heyward hit his 20th home run of the season in the final game and had six hits in the series; five over the last two games and is hitting .324 in his last 10 games. Uggla hit a pair of home runs among his three hits in the series and drew two more walks to add to his NL-leading total. He had a couple of hitless games in his last nine, but is still hitting .323 in that span with six extra-base hits (3 doubles, 3 HR) and nine RBI.
Not everything was great about the series, however. Brian McCann continued his struggles at the plate. He was 0-for the series (12 at-bats) and saw his batting average drop to .229, only 19 points better than Paul Janish who had four hits and two RBI in the series. Speaking of Janish, he has really been stellar filling in at shortstop; his defense has really helped the Braves and it's as if they haven't missed a beat with Simmons out.
As for the pitching, it was nothing short of spectacular; Mike Minor, unfortunately, was the odd man out when he took the loss despite giving up just three runs. The starters in the three wins allowed just a single run - Paul Maholm gave up a home run in the third game - in 22.1 innings. The best performance of the series by far went to Kris Medlen who is making a case to stay in the rotation: his complete-game shutout on Thursday was the first of his career and he has a 1.05 ERA in his four starts. The Braves now have four pitchers with complete-game shutouts this year (Medlen, Maholm, Hudson, Beachy).
In addition, Padres hitters with RISP were 0-17 in Atlanta's three wins after being 3-8 on Monday, leaving a total of 28 runners on base in the four games. Chase Headley was held to four hits in the series.