The Padres on Sunday won back-to-back games for the first time since May 22-23. They also won back-to-back series for the first time since taking two of three in Anaheim and Colorado (April 17-23).<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a drought that cost them dearly in the NL West as they begin the week seven games behind the Dodgers in the division. Perhaps miraculously, they are still in wild-card position, a game up on the Cubs and Nationals in the race for the NL\u2019s third wild-card.<\/p>\n
Not great after a 31-20 start to the season, but it could be a lot worse.<\/p>\n
After all, both catchers from the opening day roster are now on the injured list, Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove still aren\u2019t throwing bullpens, Lucas Giolito and Griffin Canning have yet to click as rotation fill-ins, Fernando Tatis Jr. still only has two homers, Jackson Merrill has a .619 OPS and Manny Machado\u2019s .175 batting average is the worst in the majors.<\/p>\n
Machado likes to say it can only go up from here.<\/p>\n
The Padres continue to hope.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The top-10 \u2026<\/p>\n
1\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 Atlanta Braves (46-25; Last week: 1)
\n2\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 Los Angeles Dodgers (45-27; LW: 2)
\n3\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 Milwaukee Brewers (43-26; LW: 3)
\n4\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 New York Yankees (43-27; LW: 4)
\n5\u00a0\u00a0 |\u00a0\u00a0 Tampa Bay Rays (41-27; LW: 5)
\n6\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 St. Louis Cardinals (38-31; LW: 6)
\n7\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 Chicago White Sox (38-32; LW: 12)
\n8\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 Cleveland Guardians (39-33; LW: 7)
\n9\u00a0 \u00a0|\u00a0\u00a0 Philadelphia Phillies (38-33; LW: 10)
\n10|\u00a0\u00a0 Washington Nationals (37-25; LW: 14)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2026 and the rest<\/p>\n
11 |\u00a0\u00a0 Chicago Cubs (37-35; LW: 8)
\n12 |\u00a0 \u00a0SAN DIEGO PADRES (37-33; LW: 15)
\n13 |\u00a0\u00a0 Seattle Mariners (37-36; LW: 11)
\n14 |\u00a0\u00a0 Pittsburgh Pirates (36-36; LW: 9)
\n15 |\u00a0\u00a0 Miami Marlins (36-36; LW: 18)
\n16 |\u00a0\u00a0 Arizona Diamondbacks (36-35; LW: 13)
\n17 |\u00a0\u00a0 Texas Rangers (35-36; LW: 16)
\n18 |\u00a0\u00a0 Sacramento Athletics (35-36; LW: 20)
\n19 |\u00a0\u00a0 Toronto Blue Jays (34-38; LW: 17)
\n20 |\u00a0\u00a0 Baltimore Orioles (34-39; LW: 21)
\n21 |\u00a0\u00a0 Cincinnati Reds (33-37; LW: 19)
\n22 |\u00a0\u00a0 New York Mets (32-39; LW: 22)
\n23 |\u00a0\u00a0 Houston Astros (33-40; LW: 24)
\n24 |\u00a0\u00a0 Minnesota Twins (33-40; LW: 23)
\n25 |\u00a0\u00a0 Boston Red Sox (29-40; LW: 25)
\n26 |\u00a0\u00a0 Detroit Tigers (29-42; LW: 26)
\n27 |\u00a0\u00a0 Los Angeles Angels (29-43; LW: 29)
\n28 |\u00a0\u00a0 San Francisco Giants (29-43; LW: 28)
\n29 |\u00a0\u00a0 Kansas City Royals (29-43; LW: 27)
\n30 |\u00a0\u00a0 Colorado Rockies (27-45; LW: 30)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Padres on Sunday won back-to-back games for the first time since May 22-23. They also won back-to-back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,3914,591,1189,85],"class_list":["post-738359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}