The baseball season’s quarter mark has arrived, and I’ve figured out these Padres.

Anyone can hang around against them, which in turn, has made it easy for outsiders to wonder, quite fairly, if this San Diego club is just another mediocre team in the big leagues.

But beating the Padres in a game that’s not lopsided, well, that’s actually quite difficult.

And, because most ballgames in fact aren’t lopsided, the Padres have the stuff of a solid playoff contender.

While Padres Ball 2026 does not make for pretty baseball, it makes for winning baseball — and Sunday’s 3-2 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals, before almost 40,000 fans in the sunny East Village, was only the latest example of it.

In the end, once again, it didn’t matter that San Diego’s offense had a bad day overall.

A Padres bullpen loaded with wipeout stuff outperformed a good Cardinals relief corps, despite manager Craig Stammen lacking his megacloser Mason Miller, who’d thrown 29 pitches Saturday.

As for a Padres’ position crew that reminds no one of the 1998 World Series club, it does have this going for it:

It’s fairly well-equipped to win the mental and matchup game, late in close contests.

It did so again on Sunday.

Seasoned hitter Nick Castellanos, winning a nine-pitch chess match, belted the season’s biggest home run.

Meeting a 98 mph sinker, which often takes guessing right, the 34-year-old righty pulled a two-strike, two-out, two-run home run in the ninth inning.

Stammen, a former reliever who thinks along with every pitch, said Castellanos’ heady efforts against closer Riley Olsen’s sweepers and fastballs as the at-bat unfolded led to him getting the right pitch to hammer.

“He basically forced the pitcher into using the sinker,” Stammen said.

“Which is his best pitch,” the manager added. “The pitcher wanted to throw that pitch. But (the savvy hitting) allowed Nick to get to that 3-2 count with a chance to maybe be a little more predictable with what was coming.”

Manny Machado’s no-out sacrifice fly in the 10th won it, dealing St. Louis its first extra-inning loss in six tries and splitting the four-game series.

And Machado likely drew on his veteran’s wisdom, enabling him to get the barrel to a high-and-tight first-pitch fastball.

The 299-foot drive soared beyond a five-man infield to right-fielder Jordan Walker. The firm throw couldn’t get Ramon Laureano at the plate.

We’ve not seen peak Machado for a long time. The righty had been 1-for-29 entering the at-bat.

At 33, Machado doesn’t have the fastest bat of his career. His mental game remains formidable. He has six home runs. Responding to the smaller strike zone, he led the league in walk rate for most of the first six weeks before tapering off.

With less depth, Castellano likely would’ve been walked. After all, first base was open. And as Castellanos stayed alive with three foul balls, one of which cracked his pink Mother’s Day bat, leaving him to use a black bat, O’Brien could’ve decided the veteran had seen enough of his stuff and put him on, bringing up the No. 9 hitter.

But that hitter was no slouch: Laureano, summoned by Stammen as a pinch-hitter, has five home runs, making him a threat to win the game with one swing.

“It was a good at-bat,” O’Brien said of Castellanos. “He fouled some pitches off that I thought were pretty well executed.

“I just can’t give in there,” said the closer, who hadn’t allowed a homer this year. “I’ve got to finish the at-bat.”

Several Padres pitchers rescued an offense that didn’t score until it was down to its last strike, and saw Fernando Tatis Jr. remain homerless in ‘26.

Walker Buehler (six innings, two runs) had his best Padres outing in eight starts. The ex-Dodgers ace’s fastball had more life this time. He set the tone with it. Buehler had only one big error, a fat knuckle-curve that Walker hit for a two-run homer.

Three Padres relievers teamed up for four scoreless innings, sending the teams toward Milwaukee and then Seattle with a rested Miller.

Asked what it’s like to play baseball chess with his veteran-laden team, Stammen broke it down.

“We have a deep roster,” he said. “One through 13, position players, I feel really good about that. One through 13, on the pitching side, I feel really good about that, too.

“A.J.’s done a good job of constructing this roster,” he said of president of baseball operations A.J. Preller.

The second quarter begins Tuesday against the clever Brewers in Milwaukee. They’re doing Brewers things again, completing a three-game of the New York Yankees on Sunday.

Maybe this is the trip Tatis find his home run power — he came his closest yet Sunday, driving the center fielder to the wall with a 395-foot blow off a fastball.

Count on this: The Padres will go into all six games with the more talented bullpen. Late in the game, they’ll send up veteran hitters who can read the situation and are at least a threat to hit a homer.