The San Diego Padres are hoping to finish the 2025 regular season strong for a potential postseason run. The team is built to win with the pieces to make a lot of noise in the National League.
The Friars are coming off a tough loss to the New York Mets in Game 1 of their three-game series in Queens. Seven home runs were hit, but the Mets won 8-3. The Padres must bounce back and take Game 2, forcing a chance to win the series on Thursday afternoon. This series is crucial for the Padres to win, as they are trying to chase down the defending champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, in the competitive NL West Division.
LA owns a two-game lead (plus the tiebreaker) over SD with 11 games to go. The Padres have not won the NL West since 2006 and would love nothing more than to host the Wild Card in front of the Friar Faithful. Of course, winning the division would be incredible, but it does not guarantee you anything but home-field advantage for the first round this season. The Padres, if they do win the division, will finish as the 3-seed in the NL, as the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies will own the top two records. Milwaukee currently has a one-game lead over the Phillies.
The Padres do have a dream playoff scenario; however, it could end up being just that … a dream. You can also read about the Padres' nightmare playoff scenario.
The dream scenario would begin with winning the NL West division, which would secure the three-seed. The fight for the final Wild Card spot is up for grabs between the Mets, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, and Cincinnati Reds. Any one of those four teams could end up making it with 11 games to go. The Mets seem to be the likely of the bunch to make it, but only have a 1.5-game lead over the D-Backs as of now. Arizona and SF are currently in extra innings of a 0-0 game at the time of writing.
The best-case matchup for the Padres would be to take on the Giants or the Reds for the Wild Card. The Padres won the regular-season series against the Giants 10-3 this season. Against the Reds, they finished 2-4. Ideally, the Padres would prefer to take on the divisional opponent, a team they know very well and have a lot of success against. The Giants are three games back of the Mets and need to take down the D-backs in order to have a better chance. It would also help the Giants if the Padres won the next two games, winning the series against the Mets.
The second part of the dream scenario would have the Philadelphia Phillies winning the NL, becoming the top seed. This would put the Milwaukee Brewers as the 2-seed in the NL. The Padres (as the three-seed) would face the Brewers in the Divisional Round if they were to make it. The Friars are 2-1 against Milwaukee already this season, and will take on the Brew Crew next week. Another series win against one of the best teams in the league would not only give the Padres confidence that they could do it a third time if necessary, but it would obviously help toward winning the NL West for the first time since 2006.
The Padres are going to need help from the Giants as well, as they will travel to Los Angeles for a four-game series against the Dodgers starting tomorrow. The Friars need the Giants to force a series split to give the Padres a better chance of making this dream a reality.
The Padres will send out Nick Pivetta for Game 2 of the series against the Mets on Wednesday night. David Peterson will start for the Mets as the Padres try and avoid the series loss. San Diego is only 6-4 in their last 10 games, while the Mets are 2-8. San Diego must take advantage of the recent poor play from the Mets. The Padres' offense has not been as hot as they have been earlier in the season, and they are hoping to get one of their star players back at the right time.
The Padres are hoping to get Xander Bogaerts back for the playoffs. He has been out for the last few weeks with a fractured foot, but is expected to be back in the lineup for the postseason. It would benefit him and the Friars more if he returned to the lineup for the final series of the season against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
