The Padres have spent much of this season trying to steady the ship, and now they may have found enough momentum to make the rest of the National League pay attention. With the trade deadline behind them and the offense starting to wake up, San Diego is suddenly being talked about as a team nobody wants to draw in October.
That conversation picked up after MLB insider Eduardo Perez said the Padres are one of the few clubs that could knock out the reigning back-to-back champion Dodgers in the postseason this year.
"They have a bullpen that is a shutdown bullpen, and they have guys that have underperformed offensively that are not what the numbers indicate that they are, and they've turned it around the last few weeks," Perez said on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. "I think it's a team that if they are matched up against the Dodgers in the Division series or in the Championship series ... if there is a team that I think could match up psychologically well because of the past history of being beaten up by the Dodgers, I think it's San Diego."
Perez also added, "They are at their best right now offensively, if this keeps up, I don’t want to face them"
San Diego’s deadline haul helped fuel that optimism. The Padres added Casey Mize and Robbie Ray to strengthen a rotation that had been a real question mark, and those moves came on top of a recent hot stretch from the offense.
The Dodgers remain the measuring stick, and the matchup history is part of why this keeps coming up. The two clubs have met in the playoffs three times since 2020, with Los Angeles taking two of those series. Two years ago, the Padres had the Dodgers on the ropes heading into Game 4 at Petco Park, but they couldn’t close it out and eventually lost the series in Game 5 at Dodger Stadium.
This season has looked familiar in one way: the Dodgers have still had San Diego’s number. The Padres are 3-7 against Los Angeles and have dropped all three series so far, though the teams still have one more set coming up from Sept. 22-24.
Even with that record, the Padres are still very much alive in the NL race. They sit one game back of the final wild-card spot, with plenty of baseball left to play. And if the offense keeps trending the way it has, San Diego may be the kind of team that turns a crowded playoff field into a real problem for anybody standing across from them.
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Dodgers Number 29 Change Just Signaled A Notable Roster Shift
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The jersey switch also reflects a broader roster reshuffling that comes with a new arrival in the clubhouse, especially when a number with some Dodgers history is involved. No. 29 has belonged to a long line of previous Dodgers players and coaches, and the change left Hernndez in a different lane as he settled back into the big-league mix. [Read more 🡒]