ATLANTA — San Diego stunned Atlanta with a six-run sixth inning, and Kevin Kouzmanoff finished off the Braves with a two-run homer that sent the Padres to a 12-5 rout Wednesday night.
The last-place Padres won their second straight over the Braves, whose playoff hopes have taken a big blow during two sparsely attended games at Turner Field.
On Thursday, San Diego will go for its first series sweep since taking three games from the Chicago Cubs on May 22-24.
Coming off a 12-inning win in the series opener, the Padres failed to score in the top of the first after loading the bases with no outs, then fell behind when Brian McCann hit a three-run homer off Tim Stauffer (2-6) in the bottom half of the inning.
A three-run lead looked pretty safe against the Padres, the lowest-scoring team in the NL. After escaping that early jam, Kenshin Kawakami (6-10) breezed through the next four innings, allowing only two baserunners.
But San Diego struck suddenly in the sixth, sending 11 batters to the plate and scoring more runs that inning than their last three games combined.
Adrian Gonzalez started it with a double, Chase Headley followed with a single and Will Venable doubled in a run. Kouzmanoff's groundout produced another run, and Nick Hundley finished off Kawakami with another RBI double, tying the game at 3. Eric O'Flaherty took over, but couldn't stop the onslaught.
Tony Gwynn Jr. singled and pinch-hitter Luis Rodriguez drove in another run with a hit. When the throw home got away from McCann, rolling about 10 feet away, Gwynn alertly raced to the plate to make it 5-3. Gonzalez finished off the big inning with an RBI single before Peter Moylan, the third Atlanta pitcher, finally got the third out.
Ryan Church's run-scoring single in the bottom half pulled the Braves to 6-4, but Kouzmanoff went deep off Manny Acosta in the seventh for his 16th homer, and a three-run ninth really blew it open.
The Braves dropped eight games behind first-place Philadelphia in the NL East. Atlanta came into the night 5½ games behind Colorado in the wild card.
NOTES: The Padres had 18 hits, equaled their season high for runs in an inning and had their second-highest scoring game of the season, eclipsed only by a 13-6 win over Milwaukee on Aug. 11. ... Braves SS Yunel Escobar extended his hitting streak to a season-high 10 games with a bloop single in the sixth. ... The announced attendance was 15,619, slightly higher than Tuesday's crowd of 15,389. The smallest turnout of the season was 15,364 against Colorado on April 18. ... It began raining in the bottom half of the eighth, sending most of the fans who remained scurrying for the exits. Only a few hundred people were still around for the finish.
