SAN DIEGO -- Power and veteran savvy have been two defining traits of Travis d'Arnaud’s long big league career.

In the Braves’ final game before the All-Star break, he showcased both in memorable fashion.

d’Arnaud hit two titanic home runs and picked up a rare stolen base to lift the Braves to a 6-3 victory over the Padres on Sunday afternoon at Petco Park. The Braves enter the break 53-42 and in the National League’s top Wild Card position.

“I think we've done a good job of just grinding this thing out and staying relevant,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “I like where we are.”

d’Arnaud used his savvy to give the Braves the lead and his power to propel them to victory. With the score tied, 1-1, in the fifth inning, d’Arnaud worked a leadoff walk against Padres starter Randy Vásquez. With d’Arnaud standing on first, Vásquez inexplicably threw his next pitch to Eddie Rosario out of the windup. d’Arnaud quickly picked up the mistake and stole second base without a throw.

It was just the third stolen base of d’Arnaud’s 12-year career and his first since 2020.

“After watching the replay, maybe they still could have gotten me. That's how slow I am,” d’Arnaud said with a chuckle. “But I'll take it.”

When he stood up from his slide, he emulated teammate Ronald Acuña Jr.’s motorcycle revving celebration to the delight of his hollering teammates.

“I felt fast, and I did the Ronnie move,” d’Arnaud said. “… It was fun. I still can't believe it happened.”

The steal proved crucial. Rosario followed with a grounder to second that advanced d’Arnaud to third. It would have been a double-play ball had d’Arnaud still been on first. Then Adam Duvall ripped a line drive into left field to score d’Arnaud with the go-ahead run.

“That's an IQ play,” said Braves starting pitcher Chris Sale, who tossed five sharp innings for the win. “That's just knowing the game and understanding where you're at and what's going on and just paying attention. That's big-time.”

d’Arnaud continued to make his presence felt as the game progressed. With the Braves nursing their slim 2-1 lead in the sixth, d’Arnaud crushed a three-run home run to center field off of Padres reliever Stephen Kolek to give the Braves some needed breathing room. The ball left d’Arnaud’s bat at 107.2 mph and traveled a Statcast-projected 431 feet.

After the Padres rallied to cut the deficit, d’Arnaud was there to pick up the Braves once again. Facing Padres reliever Jeremiah Estrada in the eighth, d’Arnaud belted a solo home run 445 feet, into the visitor’s bullpen in left-center field. It was his longest home run of the season and capped the scoring to send the Braves into the break on a high note.

“The last couple of weeks, I had an issue of drifting, and it caused my lower half to collapse,” d’Arnaud said. “So I was working on staying back to make sure my legs were under me. The last week or so, I was working on staying back. And today I finally felt comfortable with it and was able to see the ball really well.”

Sale allowed four hits and one run, with two walks and four strikeouts, to earn his Major League-leading 13th win. He became just the sixth Braves pitcher to win 13 games before the All-Star break and the first since John Smoltz in 1996.

Sale allowed three hits and a run in the first inning and would have allowed more if not for a diving stop by Austin Riley to rob Ha-Seong Kim of a two-run single. But the All-Star left-hander made an adjustment between innings and allowed just one hit the rest of the way.

“I kind of noticed their approach,” Sale said. “I saw that they weren’t waiting around for anything. It seemed like they were very aggressive early in the count, and I just knew kind of early on it was like, ‘You're going to have to be a little bit more specific with the first couple of pitches of the at-bat.’”

The Padres threatened once Sale left the game. Luis Campusano lifted a pinch-hit two-run homer to right off of A.J. Minter in the seventh to cut the deficit to 5-3, and the Padres brought Manny Machado to the plate as the go-ahead run three batters later.

But Joe Jiménez entered and got Machado to line out to left field to end the frame, and d’Arnaud’s second homer the following inning sapped whatever momentum the Padres had.