It was bad.
A-few-losses-from-selling bad.
On July 23, 11 days before the MLB trade deadline, the Padres were three games under .500, four games out of postseason position and five teams away from that final National League playoff spot.
Moreover, they just had never really looked like a playoff-caliber team for any sustained period all season.
Their offense was ranked 26th in OPS and 24th in runs scored, and it was only that good because Fernando Tatis Jr. and a cast of players no one would have expected could carry a club were making up for significantly subpar seasons by Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill. Their starting pitchers were averaging less than 4⅔ innings a game, and it was that much thanks almost exclusively to Michael King and Walker Buehler averaging 5⅓ innings.
As a group, they rarely pitched well enough and hit well enough in the same games.
And then, suddenly, the Padres started doing almost everything well almost all the time.
They went from 24th in runs scored in their first 103 games to third over their final 59 and from 26th in OPS to second. They went from 27th in starter ERA to 12th.
They finished with 91 victories, tied for fourth-most in franchise history, landing the fourth seed in the NL postseason field and earning the right to host the best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Cubs that begins Tuesday night at Petco Park.
There were myriad maneuvers and individual performances that turned the Padres’ season and led them to an MLB-best 41-18 record since July 24.
There was the radical pitching plan instituted for the final 10 games before the trade deadline.
There was Merrill posting a .987 OPS over 56 games from mid-July to mid-September, a span just 15 other MLB players matched or bettered at any point this season. And there was Tatis becoming the slugger he was born to be and posting the second-highest OPS (.996) in the major leagues since the All-Star break.
Machado started coming through just enough and Ty France kept coming through.
Luis Rengifo kept the spark lit by Samad Taylor going. Taylor came back after Rengifo went down and maintained the fire. A guy named Dustin Harris was called up and hit .322 in 28 games.
Ethan Salas made his major league debut on Sept. 2, and after a quick acclimation period, became one of the most impactful players on the team.
The Padres have been such a different team since that final week of July that it was easy to forget the bullpen remained the biggest reason they were able to close out victory after victory. No other team came close to going 75-1 when having a lead after eight innings.
But perhaps the biggest thing that bodes well for them as they begin the playoffs is this:
“To get to where we’re at today, we had to play some good baseball,” Machado said Monday. “Just continue doing that, and I think we’ll be just fine.”
That can be much easier said than done when it comes to the postseason.
There is no denying playoff baseball is a different beast to conquer.
The crowds are bigger and louder. The scrutiny is harsher. The stakes are monumental and more immediately realized.
But the Padres’ reality is that they have been in postseason mode off and on (mostly on) for two months.
They closed so well because they had to.
“We’ve been playing with our backs against the wall for a while now,” Jake Cronenworth said.
For much of a major league season, which consists of 162 games, there is always time for later. There are so many tomorrows to think about that a single game rarely takes on added significance.
But the Padres ran short on tomorrows a long time ago.
“Right before the trade deadline,” Cronenworth said of when that was. “… That was our season. Especially with all the trade rumors that were happening. … I think it was a realization. Like, ‘Hey, this is it.’ I think it’s good we were playing these games that early.”
That isn’t just hindsight. Those are the things they were saying in the midst of trying to secure a playoff berth.
“We know we have to play our best baseball right now,” France said in early September, when the Padres were a half-game out of playoff position. “… Every game is important. And at the end of every game, there’s 28 guys sitting in here catching their breath, going, ‘Man, that was a grind.’ But that’s expected at this point in the year and when you’re on a team that’s competing. That’s what it’s going to be like.”
Now, just because the Padres head into the postseason as MLB’s hottest-hitting and most successful team over the past two months does not mean they will continue to perform that way.
The capricious nature of baseball creates far more variance between the regular season and postseason than in any other professional sport. It is not just a marathon to a sprint. It is walking to running the 110-meter hurdles.
The 2024 Padres won 43 of their final 62 games to finish with 93 victories. Then, after taking a 2-1 lead in the NL Division Series against the Dodgers, they didn’t score for two games.
There are only small sample sizes in the postseason, and this Padres team has shown it can go cold.
It was just Sept. 2 that they lost for the eighth time in nine games.
But even how they responded to that skid was illustrative of their greatest strength this season.
It was a tenet of rookie manager Craig Stammen that adversity is a necessary component of success.
Asked to reflect Sunday on how well the Padres finished and what his thoughts were on getting to 91 victories, Stammen returned to his mantra.
“I think the best part about it is we battled some tough times,: he said. “We battled through some issues, some adversity or low points, and we were able to come out of it stronger and better than ever. And we finished the season playing great baseball, probably the best of the season, and hopefully that carries on into the postseason.
“I think the playoffs present a lot of ups and downs — even throughout the game. And so being able to handle things that are tough is a good thing. And I think these guys have found out that they can handle about anything and still come out on top. I think that’s a good lesson to be learned, and it builds resilience and toughness. And those are good traits to have in the postseason.”