In the latest sign the Padres’ listing season may have stabilized, they completed a sweep of one of the best teams in the major leagues on Wednesday at Petco Park.

It was as much the manner in which they went about completing their 5-2 victory over the Braves as the result.

The game went about as perfectly as it could have and as it pretty much had to.

Fill-in starting pitcher JP Sears seized his first opportunity of the season, and the Padres hitters kept creating opportunities and capitalized on enough of them, giving a depleted bullpen a cushion with which to work.

“It’s just good team baseball,” Ty France said. “Something we’ve been not necessarily searching for all year but hoping it would click, and it finally did.”

Wednesday was how a contest like this gets mapped out when a manager and his coaches go over contingencies beforehand. And it was how such a game so rarely unfolds.

“That’s about as good as we could have expected,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said.

Sears, called up a day earlier when Lucas Giolito was placed on the injured list with elbow inflammation, shut out the Braves for 5⅔ innings before leaving a changeup too high in the zone and having Joey Bart launch it to the second balcony of the Western Metal Building to get the Braves to within 3-2.

The Padres being 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position to that point seemed like it might haunt them, given that they were going to have to navigate the end of the game without Adrian Morejón and Mason Miller due to the two high-leverage relievers’ recent workload.

But the Padres scored twice more in the sixth inning before three relievers closed out their ninth victory in 15 games, a stretch that follows a 2-11 skid. The sweep against the Braves, who entered the game MLB’s third-best record at 48-30, was the Padres’ first since May 15-17 at Seattle.

David Morgan, who finished off the sixth, followed with a scoreless seventh. Wandy Peralta did the same in the eighth, and Jason Adam worked a 1-2-3 ninth.

The Padres scored almost every which way over four consecutive innings.

Braves starter Martín Pérez, who had a 3.46 ERA in 10 starts for the Padres at the end of 2024, threw just 11 pitches in the first inning and 12 in the second.

The Padres’ first hit gave them a 1-0 lead, as France sent a changeup at the knees 417 feet and into the seats beyond left field.

They added a run in the fourth when two walks and a single loaded the bases before France drove in a run with a line drive to right field that right fielder Eli White dove to catch.

It was 3-0 after five innings.

Fernando Tatis Jr. led off that inning with a walk, and Samad Taylor singled to end Perez’s day. It was the first time in 12 starts this season that the veteran lefty did not last five innings.

With James Karinchak in, Tatis and Taylor executed a double steal before Xander Bogaerts dropped a flare into center field to drive in Tatis with one out.

Jackson Merrill and Miguel Andujar followed with groundouts to leave Taylor at third.

After Bart got the Braves within a run in the top of the sixth, Taylor would not let the Padres come up empty in the bottom of the inning.

France began the inning with a double off Dylan Dodd and was sacrificed to third by Freddy Fermin. Jase Bowen walked and stole second during Tatis’ strikeout before  Taylor poked a 2-2 slider off the end of his bat into right field to drive in both runners.

The Padres followed a 1-0 victory in the series opener by winning 7-6 in extra innings on Tuesday. Wednesday was the fifth time in seven games they have scored at least five runs, something they did just four times in their previous 16 games.”

“That’s a huge series for us,” Taylor said. “The boys are gonna fight. We’re gonna keep fighting. It was a great series offensively. Pitching did amazing. J.P. came up today and threw his butt off.”

The Padres are off Thursday before beginning a three-game home series against the Dodgers, whose 52-29 record is tops in baseball.

“They’re good team, these guys,” Bogaerts said of the Braves. “Nice sweep, nice games. Pitching, defense, hitting, we’re doing good right now. So let’s keep it going.”