Four Braves hit home runs, and Chris Sale earned his 11th victory when Atlanta took a 6-5 win against the visiting San Diego Padres on Thursday afternoon.

Michael Harris II, Ozzie Albies, Dominic Smith and Drake Baldwin each went deep for the Braves, who won the series 3-1. Atlanta is 5-2 since the All-Star break and has scored at least five runs in 11 of its past 13 home games.

Sale (11-6) pitched six innings and allowed three runs on five hits and one walk. He matched his season high with 11 strikeouts and improved his career record against the Padres to 5-0.

Raisel Iglesias pitched the ninth to earn his 21st save. He gave up a pair of two-out singles but came back to strike out Luis Rengifo to end the game.

Griffin Canning (1-9) took his fourth consecutive loss. He pitched 2 2/3 innings and allowed five runs (four earned) on five hits with four strikeouts.

The Padres jumped on Sale for three runs in the second, ending his scoreless streak at 11 innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. drew a bases-loaded walk, a plate appearance kept alive by a successful ABS challenge that reversed a strike. Rengifo followed with a two-run single.

With the Braves using a heavy left-handed lineup at the top of the order, San Diego opted to use southpaw Kyle Hart as an opener. He retired the Braves in order in the first and gave way to Canning, the scheduled starter.

The strategy backfired when Harris hit the second pitch from Canning for a solo homer, his 19th of the season. The 420-foot shot settled deep into the right-field stands.

The Braves went deep twice more off Canning in the fourth. Albies added a solo shot, his 16th home run of the year, and Smith launched a three-run shot, his seventh homer.

Atlanta got another solo homer from Baldwin, his 19th, in the seventh inning against reliever Matt Waldron.

The Padres cut the lead to 6-5 in the eighth when Ty France hit his 16th home run of the season, a two-run shot, against reliever Tyler Kinley. It was the fifth home run for France since the All-Star break.

–Field Level Media

Second-seeded Barbora Krejcikova scored an easy straight set victory over Lucie Havlickova 6-4, 6-2 to cruise to the quarterfinals at the Prague Open in the Czech Republic on Thursday.

Krejcikova won the tournament in 2021 but has yet to return to the semifinals. On Thursday, she was able to put the pressure on Havlickova, forcing 12 break point opportunities and taking three while saving the lone break point she faced.

In the other matches, Lanlana Tararudee of Thailand outlasted fourth-seeded Nikola Bartunkova of the Czech Republic in a marathon match, 7-6 (4), 3-6, 7-6 (6). Tararudee landed just 67 percent of her first service points and Bartunkova just 69 percent. Tararudee fell behind in the final set 5-2 but staved off four match points throughout the set to advance to the next round.

Third-seeded Sara Bejlek cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Maria Timofeeva of Uzbekistan. Bejlek will now face off against Austria’s Lilli Tagger in the next round after Tagger took down Japan’s Mai Hontama 6-4, 6-4.

MSC Hamburg Ladies Open

Top-seeded Oleksandra Oliynykova of Ukraine had to fight through a three-set match to advance and was the only seeded player to do so on the day in Germany.

Oliynykova came out on top 7-6 (3), 3-6, 6-2 over Spaniard Leyre Romero Gormaz despite saving only 4 of the 11 break points she faced. It was her return game that came in handy as she broke Romero Gormaz seven times and had a 75 percent first serve percentage in the deciding set.

Oliynykova will now have to prepare for Elina Avanesyan of Armenia who upset seventh-seeded Yulia Putintseva of Kazakhstan 6-3, 2-6, 6-2. Avanesyan is currently ranked 208 in the world but picked apart Putintseva by breaking her nine times across the three sets.

Egypt’s Mayar Sherif took down France’s Elsa Jacquemot 6-2, 6-3 to advance to the quarterfinals. She’ll take on Paula Badosa of Spain after Badosa defeated third-seeded Panna Udvardy of Hungary, 6-4, 6-1.

–Field Level Media

Lane Kiffin accepted his third SEC head-coaching job in 17 years when he agreed to leave Ole Miss for LSU at the end of the regular season in November.

Eight months later, Kiffin admitted he would have done things differently if granted a redo. Kiffin said he would have hit the exit when Ole Miss athletic director Keith Carter told him he couldn’t stick around to coach the team when he already had agreed to leave for LSU.

“I wish I would have gone in when I met with Keith and said, ‘I’ve made the decision to go,'” Kiffin said. “I wish I would have just said, ‘Hey, I’d like to coach the team,’ and he’d say, ‘No.’ And I’d say, ‘Hey, OK, I appreciate it.’ Move on [and] never even discussed it again.”

Ole Miss was 11-1 in the regular season and booked a spot in the College Football Playoff as Kiffin weighed offers from two other SEC programs — LSU and Florida. He met with Carter following the Rebels’ rivalry game with Mississippi State before his decision became public along with Kiffin’s claim he was fighting to coach Ole Miss in the CFP.

Kiffin won’t have to wait all that long to see several of his former players and coaches. LSU visits Ole Miss on Sept. 19 for a matchup of Kiffin and his former top assistant, Pete Golding. The Rebels’ defensive coordinator was promoted to head coach upon Kiffin’s departure for Baton Rouge.

Congress included language in its proposed college sports regulatory legislation for a “Lane Kiffin Rule” within the Protect College Sports Act.

On Thursday, Kiffin said he didn’t know about it because “I don’t read anything” and has given up social media.

“Like, you just said that, and I didn’t know that until you said it,” Kiffin claimed. “You know, I guess in that I hope that some way for future coaches they’re not put in that situation. You know, the NFL, you’re never put in that situation because of the calendar and because of the rules of movement within seasons.

“I do hope for future people that’s fixed so that you’re not in that same predicament for players, for coaches, which really was a player issue, too. Then we fixed that with moving the portal date back. That was more of an issue earlier in the postseason, too, as you saw players having to leave teams to get into the portal during the season. Hopefully some way they fix it for coaches, too.”

Kiffin, who served as Alabama offensive coordinator and was head coach at Tennessee, feels he ultimately made the right call to replace Brian Kelly at LSU. His mistake? Expecting everyone to appreciate or understand it.

“I made a challenging decision in change,” Kiffin said. “I think as I look back to that, I thought I could find a way for everybody to understand. Now as I look back later on, that was never going to happen.”

–Field Level Media