His peak?

As he’s discussed the ups and downs of regaining his feel after an injury-riddled season, Michael King has quibbled — in his good-natured way — with the notion that what he did to the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the 2024 NL Wild Card Series was a top-end performance.

A 12-strikeout effort in a postseason win is awfully hard to top. Doing so without walking a batter is obviously optimal.

But five hits allowed over seven shutout innings?

King believes he should have gone even deeper and could have allowed even fewer base runners.

That’s the bar that the 31-year-old right-hander sets for himself.

The Padres can only hope he’s on the verge of approaching it again.

King snapped out of a five-start slump with seven scoreless innings against the same Braves team he dominated in the postseason nearly two years ago, Manny Machado homered for the second time in three days and the Padres eked out a 1-0 win on Monday in front of a sellout crowd of 42,572 at Petco Park.

Machado’s blast was only one of four Padres hits, but that’s survivable — even if still concerning — when they get starting pitching like they got on Monday and shutdown relief as provided by Adrián Morejón and Mason Miller over the final two frames.

The Padres certainly need King, circa 2024.

The sooner, the better, too.

The Padres’ rotation began the week ranked 25th in ERA (4.63), and the seams that held sturdy early in the year as Nick Pivetta hit the injured list are beginning to come apart.

Randy Vásquez has a 6.91 ERA over his last six starts, the Padres have resorted to using openers for Griffin Canning (6.64 ERA) and Lucas Giolito (5.16 ERA) and Pivetta and Joe Musgrove are only in the catch phase of a throwing program aimed at a potential late-summer return.

Walker Buehler (3.96 ERA) has been a bright spot and Jhony Brito, Germán Márquez and Matt Waldron — all currently at Triple-A El Paso — could all resurface at some point as the Padres piece this season together.

King rediscovering his peak could be a linchpin if the Padres are going to remain in the wild-card race.

The guy who struck out nine Dodgers over seven shutout innings in a 1-0 win on May 18 could definitely lead a rotation into the postseason.

But a wayward sinker had a lot to do with allowing six homers over five starts (6.41 ERA) heading into Monday’s start against the Braves, owners of baseball’s best record.

King was much better Monday, even if he has a ways to go if he’s going to approach his lofty standards.

He struck out five, didn’t walk a batter and retired 10 in a row at one point. He finished with six hits allowed and threw 62 of his 93 pitches for strikes while becoming the first Padres pitcher to complete seven innings since his gem last month against the Dodgers.

The things King will likely nitpick?

He had just two strikeouts outside of the three he dished out to reigning NL Rookie of the Year Drake Baldwin and gave up four singles hit 105 mph or harder.

Machado’s solo homer to start the fourth inning and his eight-inning double marked the ninth and 10th hits to go for extra bases over his last 13 hits.

The 33-year-old veteran began the afternoon with an MLB-worst .179 batting average, but his 14 home runs are tops on the Padres and have him trending toward the eighth 30-homer season of his career.

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