The Padres face the league’s winningest team in the Division Series, but don’t call them underdogs.
It seemed unlikely the Padres would ever make it this far. They closed out June with an eight-game losing streak and limped into the All-Star break with a .500 record. That’s something of a death sentence in the NL West, where the juggernaut Dodgers demand perfection to unseat them at the top. The Padres playoff odds fell as low as 7.4% in the final week of July. Who would or should be fired seemed like it’d be the only relevant conversation in October.
Fast forward to Wednesday: The Padres not only pulled off a convincing sweep of the Cubs in the Wild Card round, they were favorites to do so. Their 41-18 record over the final 10 weeks of the season was the best in the majors. In fact, it was 2 1/2 games better than the next best team, the Brewers, who they now face in the Division Series on Saturday.
But it’s not just a vastly improved record. By WAR, a statistical stand in for “true talent,” no team was better in the second half than the Padres. They posted 21.9 WAR, narrowly besting the Cubs (21.8), Dodgers (21.5), Red Sox (21.4) and Brewers (20.2). It’s one of the great team-level turnarounds this century.
The surge in San Diego isn’t really too complicated. The Padres in the first half scored the fewest runs in all of baseball and posted a 90 wRC+. In the second half, they scored the third most runs and posted a 119 wRC+. With the Cubs out of the picture, the Padres arguably have the best lineup remaining in the postseason field.
It starts with the stars. Fernando Tatís Jr. has been on a torrid pace since a bizarre slump to begin the season. He struggled through May, hitting just .268/.345/.307 without a homer in his first 268 plate appearances. But he was absolutely crushing the ball at the same time, running a hard hit rate as high as 60%. The issue wasn’t so much the contact he was making but where it was going — either into the ground or toward the opposite field. On May 29, Tatís hit his first home run. He proceeded to slug 24 more before the season was up, with a slash line of .303/.368/.549 (153 wRC+). His 5.0 fWAR since that first homer was second best in the majors, behind only Pete Crow-Armstrong. Just as the Padres might have the best lineup remaining in the postseason, Tatís might be the best player.
What changed for him? We can see in the plot below that Tatís shifted his stance in the box, from a closed-and-wide stance early to a more open-and-upright stance the rest of the year. Again, he was already making lots of hard contact, but after the change, his contact was more likely to travel in the air and to the pull side. It’s a lot easier to hit home runs when a batter aims for the shallowest part of the park, and that seemed to be the difference for Tatís this summer.
Jackson Merrill struggles were even more pronounced early in 2026. Through June, Merrill hit .213/.271/.343 (72 wRC+). Since then, he’s hit .299/.338/.544 (141 wRC+). Unlike Tatís, there isn’t a clean narrative as to what changed. His hard hit rate has been strong all year. His strikeout hasn’t really changed, and he’s actually walking a bit less these days. It’s possible he was simply getting unlucky early, and the cyclical nature of baseball has shifted back in his favor. Regardless, the Padres with Merrill and Tatís have one of the great one-two punches in the majors, especially when you consider both players are solid defenders and great base runners.
But it’s more than just one great duo. Ty France seemingly out of nowhere had his best-ever season with a 141 wRC+, after bouncing around on waivers the last two years. Manny Machado hasn’t necessarily been a great hitter all around, but he still hit 30 homers and played excellent defense at third base. Even their platoons seem to be clicking, with guys like Samad Taylor, Austin Hays, and Dustin Harris playing well in limited roles. From top to bottom, things are going really well for the Padres lineup.
On the mound, well, it’s a good thing the Padres have a great lineup. The best thing I can say is they might be better served in these short series. There isn’t a ton of depth here. Michael King has dominated at times throughout his career, and in fact, we saw him spin one of his best-ever outings against the Cubs earlier in the week. But he’s not really a “true ace” more than simply the best starter in San Diego. From there, Nick Pivetta was really impressive this year, albeit in only eight starts — none more than five innings — after missing most of the season with an elbow injury. Then there’s Walker Buhler, who the Padres hope can find his former playoff dominance, even if he’s largely struggled since elbow surgery in 2022. There are other starters who could get a nod in the NLDS, but it’s worth emphasizing those are the three best the Padres have to offer at the moment. Starting pitching is far from a strength.
The good news for the Padres is they happen to have a lockdown bullpen behind them — without a doubt the best in the majors. Everyone knows about Mason Miller, who just finished one of the great reliever seasons in history. His fastball averages 101.4 mph, his slider is unhittable, and he strikes out half the batters he faces. Adrian Morejon serves as something of a 1b option for the Padres, as surely the best lefty reliever in the majors, generating tons of grounders with a heavy sinker and an invsi-ball changeup. One might even call Bradgley Rodriguez a third “one,” as the rare changeup-first pitcher. Honestly, I could just list the entire Padres bullpen: They are deep, varied, and highly effective all the way through.
They’re going to need to be against the Brewers in the NLDS. Milwaukee won 103 games this year as the winningest team in the majors for the second straight season. It was the first time in franchise history they’ve topped triple digits in the win column. Like the Padres, they have a great offense. Like the Padres, they have a great bullpen. But they also happen to have a great rotation and the league’s ace in Jacob Misiorowski. They’re the favorites in the series — and maybe the entire postseason — for a reason. To put it this way, the Padres with their surge have merely reached the level of the Brewers, who have been playing like this all season.
Still, this isn’t your standard 103-game winner versus 91-game winner, where the former is sure to bowl throughout the latter. The Padres are a very good team these days, and far better than their full-season record indicates. At the very least, either team would make a formidable opponent for the Dodgers in the NLCS, should they make it through Atlanta.
Published Date : 2026-10-02 18:00:00
Source : www.sbnation.com
