The San Diego Padres are making the playoffs.
you could put this not in pencil but in ink.
It’s August 19th and there are still 37 games left on the schedule for them.
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.
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!
But it’s more complicated than that.
Dylan Cease has been a strong addition.
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.
Plus, the Braves got this bad news today:
One person the Padres do miss is Yu Darvish.
One person close to him guessed a return this year is 50-50 and another thought its better than that.
The reason for his absence is an undisclosed family matter.
They’ve been winning without Darvish.
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.
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.
The 2024 Padres are headed to the playoffs.
