The D-backs are in San Diego tonight, and the matchup comes with the Padres stuck in a brutal slide that has completely changed the shape of the NL West.
Back on May 18, the Padres were sitting in first place after beating the Dodgers 1-0 behind Michael King and two relievers, who combined on a five-hitter. At 29-18, it looked like the division might turn into the kind of race baseball hasn’t seen in the NL West since 2021, when the Dodgers won 106 games and still needed every bit of it. Instead, the gap has blown wide open.
Since that point, the Dodgers have surged at a better than .700 pace, going 31-15. San Diego, meanwhile, has gone the other direction in a hurry, posting a 15-28 record and the worst run differential in baseball over that stretch.
That has left Los Angeles with a 14-game lead, which is twice what it was on the same date last season and the biggest margin on this date since 2019. Fangraphs now gives the Dodgers a 99.9% chance to win the division, though that number may not even fully capture how far ahead they are.
So what went wrong for the Padres? The rotation has cratered.
Over those 43 games, San Diego starters have picked up only seven wins, tied for fewest in the majors, while putting up a 5.29 ERA that ranks 27th. The lineup hasn’t done much to help, either, with a .679 OPS that ranks 28th in the league, even if it is five points better than Arizona’s.
That kind of collapse is hard to square with a payroll north of $230 million, which is $46 million more than the D-backs. Since San Diego really began spending and moved into the top ten payrolls in 2020 - a spot they’ve held every year except 2024 - the team has finished an average of fourteen games back and gone 13-15 in the postseason.
If that pattern keeps going, the pressure on general manager A.J. Preller is only going to grow. He has held the job since 2014, longer than anyone in the sport except Yankees GM Brian Cashman, but San Diego has advanced beyond the Division Series only once during his tenure.
In Other News...
Diamondbacks Face A Tough Michael Soroka Decision This Winter
Michael Sorokas first months with Arizona offered a reminder of why he still draws attention around the league. The right-hander arrived after stops with the Nationals and Cubs, and the Diamondbacks quickly saw the version of him that once made him a Braves standout, including a sharper pitch mix after he added a cutter. He even flashed it in a big way early on, giving the club a glimpse of the upside that has always made his career such an interesting study.
Now the conversation has shifted from what Soroka can do on the mound to what the Diamondbacks should do with him beyond this season. He has already given the organization enough to keep the debate alive, but injuries have also shaped too much of his recent track record to make the answer simple. Arizona will have to weigh the appeal of keeping a pitcher with real swing-and-miss ability against the uncertainty that has followed him for years. [Read more 🡒]
Who Truly Carried The D-Backs In A Defining June
June gave the Diamondbacks a pretty clear snapshot of what can carry a team through a long summer stretch. Ketel Marte kept coming through with power and big swings in late innings, while Zac Gallen turned in the kind of month that put him on the All-Star stage for the first time. Between Martes impact in the middle of the order and Gallens steady work on the mound, Arizona had two different kinds of anchors during a month that demanded both offense and run prevention.
The flip side came in the kind of ugly loss that can linger well beyond one night, when the Twins blew the game open and left the Diamondbacks sorting through the fallout. Torey Lovullo did not hide from it afterward, saying the club needed to pitch, prep, coach and manage better, and the roster move that followed showed how quickly the pressure can tighten in a month like June. For Arizona, the bigger question now is whether the same players who helped steady the group can keep doing it when the margin for error gets thinner. [Read more 🡒]
Ketel Marte Has Diamondbacks Fans Eyeing Another Big Night
Ketel Marte is the kind of hitter Arizona can lean on when the matchup lines up, and this one does. German Marquez is back in the picture after a forearm injury, and the right-hander has had trouble keeping the ball in the park this season, which is exactly the sort of opening that can turn a routine night into a loud one for a lineup with Marte in the middle of it.
Marte has also handled Marquez well enough in past meetings to make Diamondbacks fans pay attention, with extra-base damage already on the ledger and a track record that suggests comfort against this particular arm. For a team trying to squeeze every bit of offense out of its best bats, that history is enough to make another big night feel less like a guess and more like a possibility. [Read more 🡒]