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It has not been the easiest of seasons for the San Diego Padres, a team with a sputtering offense that has since fallen down in the NL West standings. On Tuesday, however, the Padres showed signs of life, scoring eight runs in an 8-3 win over the Atlanta Braves on the road — with third baseman Manny Machado dominating the proceedings.
Machado, who’s had a difficult 2026 season himself, went on a tear from the plate against the Braves. He launched a solo shot to left field in the fifth inning, a 104.8 mph rocket off of a meatball of a four-seamer from Reynaldo Lopez. And as an encore, he uncorked another dinger to left field the very next inning, one-upping himself with a home run that went 418 feet with an exit velocity of 105 mph.
In so doing, Machado now has the second-most multi-home run games as a primary third baseman in the history of MLB, with 45, surpassing Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt in the process, as per StatsCentre on X. Eddie Matthews, another Hall of Famer, is the all-time leader with 49.
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For a Padres team that’s been quite inconsistent from the plate this season, this is a promising performance that provides hope that they can right the ship in the final two or so months of the 2026 MLB regular season.
It wasn’t just Machado who went yard on Tuesday, as Fernando Tatis Jr. drove in the finishing blow in the eighth inning when he hit a two-run long ball to give the Padres a five-run lead. Even Jackson Merrill came alive by hitting a homer in the fourth inning. These are signs of life for a team with the fifth-fewest runs scored in MLB this season.
2026 has been the worst season of Machado’s career to this point. He has an OPS of .727 in 2026, which, should it hold, would be the worst tally of his career. But there are 61 games left in the season, and perhaps this performance against the Braves would end up being the turning point for the slugging third baseman.
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