For the third straight season and the fifth time in the last seven seasons, the San Diego Padres are heading to the postseason. The Padres punched their ticket with Thursday's win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers have already clinched the NL West, which means San Diego is locked into a wild-card berth.
The exact seeding will be sorted out in the coming days. As recently as Sept. 8, the Padres were a half-game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for the third wild-card spot. The two teams have gone in very different directions since then and the Padres' surge has left the Diamondbacks in the dust -- and outside the playoff picture.
The Padres joined the league as an expansion team in 1969 and they are still searching for their first World Series title. The franchise has two National League pennants (1984 and 1998) but zero championships. Here now are three reasons the 2026 Padres have a chance to end the drought and bring the first World Series to San Diego.
For the first three months or so, the Padres had the lowest scoring offense in baseball. Things changed in early July, specifically on July 8. The Padres scored 10 runs against the D-backs that day, one more run than their previous four games combined, and since that day, they have been one of the game's best offensive teams.
Here are the before and after numbers: During those first three months or so, the Padres were an obvious case of "their players just need to be better." They had the talent in place needed to win, but their core -- specifically Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, and Fernando Tatis Jr. -- had underwhelmed. Those three, plus the emergent Ty France, have really carried the offense the last few weeks. (Tatis now has 25 home runs despite not hitting his first until May 30, in the team's 57th game.) Nothing specific happened on July 8. It's just a convenient date, narratively, but the point stands.
For more than three months, the Padres had one of the game's most feeble offenses. Over the last two months and change, it has been one of the game's best, and it is the single biggest reason San Diego has charged up the standings and secured a wild-card spot. Impenetrable is an overstatement, but the late-inning tandem of Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller is the best in the game.
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