Sorry, baseball pursuits.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s great that Major League Baseball\u2019s team owners added a second and third wild-card playoff berth in recent years.<\/p>\n
With six postseason spots per league rather than four, the net gains in playoff contention outweigh the dilution of the divisional races.<\/p>\n
The Padres and their fans are a proud bunch, but humble pie tastes good when the other option is having to beat the Dodgers in National League West race.<\/p>\n
The Padres know that if they win some 85 to 90 games, they\u2019ll get the second or third wild card in most years.<\/p>\n
Now, riding an 8-1 surge that may have nixed a selloff, the Padres can dig into a 50-game playoff race on the other side of the trade deadline, starting Monday night in Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Will the Padres (58-54) overcome the Diamondbacks (59-53) and Phillies (59-53) to claim either the second or third wild-card spot, assuming the Brewers (69-42) or the Cubs (63-49) grab the first one?<\/p>\n
Will the youthful Marlins (58-55) and other low-payroll teams stick around?<\/p>\n
Because of the wild-card prizes, the comebacks of Padres starting pitchers Nick Pivetta and Joe Musgrove will take on more significance, as will the trade-deadline actions taken by A.J. Preller and his wild-card rivals \u2014 notably Dave Dombrowski and Mike Hazen of the Phillies and Diamondbacks, respectively.<\/p>\n
There are smaller details to digest, too.<\/p>\n
The Phillies hold the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Padres. And the Padres and Diamondbacks, who have split six games so far, play seven more times this season.<\/p>\n
At the very least, it\u2019s all more interesting than NFL training camps, to which many baseball fans turn when their teams are playing out the string.<\/p>\n
It seems only fair that MLB extended a hand to the Padres and others like them.<\/p>\n
If the Dodgers hadn\u2019t brilliantly exploited an MLB economic system that privileges big-market teams, the Padres wouldn\u2019t be so beholden to the wild-card option year after year.<\/p>\n
You take what you can get, while brushing off the news Saturday that the Dodgers traded for pitcher Tarik Skubal, a two-time Cy Young winner who is in his prime years.<\/p>\n
While Padres players won\u2019t concede the divisional race until the mathematicians tell them it\u2019s over, they can\u2019t help realize that \u201cWild Card or Bust\u201d has become the de facto theme to every regular season in San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s just get in however you can, whatever that is,\u201d Musgrove said Sunday after the team\u2019s 5-4 win over the Giants, a big-market club that almost never gets to the playoffs anymore despite the expanded format.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe play well, (the Dodgers) have a slide, we get the division, then great,\u201d added Musgrove. \u201cBut we just want to get in. So, whatever way that is.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres can\u2019t be accused of not going after the Dodgers with great gusto, year after year.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t a franchise that cries the small-market blues.<\/p>\n
Peter Seidler\u2019s zeal to slay the dragon couldn\u2019t be doubted.<\/p>\n
Coming to grips with how the Dodgers fit into Padres\u2019 attempts to win the franchise\u2019s first World Series title, Preller saw long ago that two crucial realities were evolving: winning the West race would be almost impossible in most years, and San Diego\u2019s best chance to blow up the\u00a0 L.A. Death Star would come via the wild card.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is,\u201d he said in November 2020, a few weeks after L.A. swept his team in the playoffs, \u201cthe Padres are never going to be able to compete financially and roster-wise completely with the Dodgers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what\u2019s your next best option?\u201d Preller added, in essence previewing San Diego\u2019s best-of-five ouster of L.A. in the 2022 playoffs. \u201cLet\u2019s do the best we can, and if we get (to the postseason), we can beat them in a seven-game series.\u201d<\/p>\n
The prospect of labor strife looms over the rest of this Padres\/MLB season, what with the labor pact due to expire in December and both sides already drawing bright red lines in public statements.<\/p>\n
MLB owners and players reps will hear this winter from broadcasters who want a large World Series tournament as part of the next collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
Musgrove, speaking good sense once again, said he\u2019d stick with 12 playoff berths.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a huge fan of opening it up to any more teams,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s an exclusive group that\u2019s the best of the best, and you settle it at the end of the year. It\u2019s good now.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Padres were to get in with the NL\u2019s sixth-best record, there will be no complaints from Padres players or fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sorry, baseball pursuits. It\u2019s great that Major League Baseball\u2019s team owners added a second and third wild-card playoff…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-422226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-latest-headlines","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}