The San Diego Padres Are A Lock To Make The Playoffs
Archie Carpenter. Shutterstock Images.The San Diego Padres are making the playoffs.
You can put this not in pencil but in ink. It's August 19th and there are still 37 games left on the schedule for them. After last season's terrible luck (going 9-23 in 1-run games, 2-12 in extra inning games), things have flipped this year. They've gone 19-5 over the last 24 games and have built a solid 5.5 game cushion for the last wild slot.
If the season ended today, they'd actually be in the first wild card slot. They'd be on the road for all of those games in that best-of-3 series. I'm not out here saying the Padres are going to win a World Series. I'm not even saying they will win the NL West even though catching the Dodgers is still in play. The Padres are only 3 games back and the Dodgers have had so many injuries including Freddie Freeman hurting his finger over the weekend. But this is a tough division and the Diamondbacks are red hot as well.
Maybe the biggest reason for the Padres being so much better than last year is rookie centerfielder Jackson Merrill. He's been having a solid season that went into overdrive since the All-Star Break. He's slugging .720 in August!
It's pretty wild that the Padres lose Cy Young winner Blake Snell and Juan Soto over the winter and are having a better season. But it's more complicated than that. Mike Shildt seems like a little bit of a pain in the ass to deal with but he's a damn good manager. Dylan Cease has been a strong addition. They might have the best bullpen in baseball with deadline additions like Tanner Scott, Jason Adam and Bryan Hoenig. And of course, there's Jackson Merrill out there in center.
Let me use the NL Wild Card standings as proof:
1. San Diego 70-55
2. Arizona 69-56 (1 GB of Padres)
3. Atlanta 66-58 (3.5 GB of Padres)
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Mets 64-60 (2 GB of Wild Card, 5.5 GB of Padres)
Giants 63-63 (4 GB of Wild Card, 7.5 GB of Padres)
Cardinals 61-63 (5 GB of Wild Card, 8.5 GB of Padres)
Cubs 61-64 (5.5 GB of Wild Card, 9 GB of Padres)
I could see one of those teams on the outside sneaking into a playoff spot but not leapfrogging into a position above the Padres. Plus, the Braves got this bad news today:
One person the Padres do miss is Yu Darvish. He got hurt in early July and then completely left the team due to a personal matter and hasn't been with the team since.
SOURCE - Yu Darvish is working out now, and the hope is Darvish — one of the best people in the game — can return to the red-hot Padres in September.
One person close to him guessed a return this year is “50-50” and another thought it’s better than that.
The reason for his absence is an undisclosed family matter.
They've been winning without Darvish. I think that would get a lot tougher in the playoffs but it's not like they need Darvish to win a Wild Card spot. It helps a ton that they just got Joe Musgrove back on the 12th. He's made two starts and has pitched really well (1 ER in 8.2 IP).
Padres fans deserve a playoff team. They had all the expectations last year and ended up having one of the unluckiest years in recent baseball history. This is also a team that made it to two World Series and then faced the AL team with the most wins in the 1980s (1984 Tigers) and then the AL team with the most wins in the 1990s (1998 Yankees). That's some bad luck.
It's a weird baseball year this season where there is no great team. Maybe all you have to do is just get in the playoffs and get hot? The 2022 Phillies and 2023 Diamondbacks got to the World Series doing exactly that. I don't know if this is the year the Padres win it all but I know one thing: they will be there.
The 2024 Padres are headed to the playoffs.