When the San Diego Padres were 50-53 going into a series in Miami on July 24, they were perhaps one more series loss away from being sellers at the MLB trade deadline.
Since then, they’ve posted the major leagues’ top record at 39-17, clinching their third straight playoff berth and their fifth in seven years with a 4-2 win Thursday night at the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Now San Diego has a chance to stay at home for the wild-card round of the National League playoffs — if it can take care of business in its final series of the season, starting Friday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Padres (89-70) are one game ahead of the Chicago Cubs for the first wild-card berth and two games ahead of the Philadelphia Phillies. They have won six straight series, mostly against sub-.500 teams, though they bookended it by taking two of three from the New York Yankees and the Dodgers.
“I think we learned a lot from those struggles,” Padres third baseman Manny Machado said. “Baseball’s a hard game, man, but we learned a lot from the struggles. To come in here and take a series from this team means a lot. We haven’t done that much lately.”
It marked the first time since April 2024 that San Diego has won a series at Dodger Stadium.
In the midst of a full-fledged celebration, center fielder Jackson Merrill sounded a cautionary note.
“We’ve still got three important games left,” he said.
The first of those will be pitched by Casey Mize (6-9, 3.96 ERA), who might be pitching for his spot on the wild-card roster. Mize was roughed up for five hits and five runs with five walks in three innings Saturday night during his team’s 7-6, 10-inning win over Miami.
Formerly with Detroit, Mize coughed up eight runs in 3 1/3 innings in his first start for the Padres in a 10-4 loss on Aug. 5 at Arizona.
As for the Diamondbacks (85-74), they flew into San Diego on Thursday evening after a 12-8 win in Colorado secured a series sweep that kept them in the wild-card hunt. They trail Philadelphia by two games and the Cubs by three.
“We came on this road trip knowing exactly what we needed to do and that’s win each day,” Arizona catcher James McCann said. “The focus and the talk in this clubhouse has been go 1-0 every day. That’s what we’ve done so far and that’s what we’re going to look to continue to do.
“We can’t control what other teams are doing, but we can control the way that we approach each and every day.”
Arizona has won its last five games to keep its hopes alive and will have one of its best pitchers, Brandon Pfaadt (7-3, 3.72), starting the series opener. The right-hander last worked on Saturday night in his team’s 5-3 home win over the Yankees, allowing four hits and one run over 4 1/3 innings with a walk and three strikeouts.
Pfaadt is 2-0 in three outings this year against the Padres. He has won both of his starts, yielding one unearned run in 12 2/3 innings, and is 5-3 with a 3.82 ERA in 12 career appearances against them.
In his career, Pfaadt is 5-3 with an ERA of 3.82 and 12 starts in his career against San Diego. He has made one career start against
The teams have split their first 10 meetings this year, including a four-game series in San Diego from July 6-9.
–Field Level Media
