How the schedule could help Padres in Wild Card chase
This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat e-newsletter. To learn the total e-newsletter, click on right here. And subscribe to get it repeatedly in your inbox.
It’s now-or-never time for the 2023 Padres.
And not merely as a result of their present four-game dropping streak has pushed them perilously near falling from the National League Wild Card race solely.
The subsequent 4 weeks will provide the Padres each likelihood to combat their manner again into that race. But, nicely, they’re going to need to play quite a bit higher than they’ve been enjoying these days.
“Listen, this is it,” stated shortstop Xander Bogaerts after the Padres’ 6-1 loss in Seattle on Wednesday. “We’ve nonetheless obtained an opportunity. We don’t management our future; we’re not in first place. But we do management it just a little bit, as a result of we’re enjoying the groups which can be proper above us.
“That’s at least a luxury we have, although it’s been bad.”
And, what? He’s not unsuitable.
Not solely are the Padres able within the standings the place they should begin reeling off victories. They’re additionally at a spot of their schedule the place these victories can be immensely precious.
Over the following 4 weeks, the Padres will play 26 video games. A whopping 20 of these come towards fellow NL Wild Card contenders, starting Friday with a three-game sequence towards the equally struggling D-backs.
“We’ve got Arizona coming up now — we need to win, doesn’t matter who it is,” Manny Machado stated. “We’ve got to play good baseball, play the baseball we can play. Obviously the last few days we haven’t. We’ve got to turn the page … and come to play, because we know they’re going to bring it.”
Consider the present Wild Card image. Seven groups are within the combine for 4 spots (certainly one of which matches to the NL Central winner). Among these seven groups, over the following 4 weeks, the Padres play the D-backs six instances, the Giants 4, and the Marlins, Brewers and Phillies thrice.
“We’re playing the guys that are in front of us,” Bogaerts stated. “We know what’s ahead of us. We know the task might not be easy. But this is a team that talent-wise, we have everything that we want.”
Recently, the playoff image has gained some readability. Sure, the Padres solely misplaced half a recreation within the standings over the previous week, regardless of their 1-5 document. That’s a product of another contenders struggling.
But it’s little comfort, as a result of the Phillies and Giants have pulled forward, gaining a agency maintain on the primary two Wild Card spots. If one different contender will get red-hot — and bear in mind the 2021 Cardinals toppled the Padres with a 17-game September successful streak — it’ll be a steep uphill climb. No, amongst that group, it wants to be the Padres who get sizzling.
“We’ve got to go out there and hopefully pull some strings together, win more than a couple games in a row,” Machado stated. “We’ve got to get hot. But if any team can do it, I think this is the team in here.”
