{"id":476823,"date":"2026-09-26T22:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T22:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476823\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T22:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T22:02:10","slug":"padres-keep-focus-despite-missed-chance-to-lock-in-home-field-advantage-nbc-7-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/476823\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres keep focus despite missed chance to lock in home-field advantage \u2013 NBC 7 San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

The San Diego Padres<\/a> may have missed an opportunity to clinch the National League’s No. 4 seed Friday night, but one lopsided loss did little to dampen the confidence of a club that has spent the past two months transforming itself into one of baseball’s hottest teams.<\/p>\n

Just one day after securing their third consecutive postseason berth with a win<\/a> over the Los Angeles Dodgers, <\/a>the Padres fell 11-4 to the Arizona Diamondbacks,<\/a> delaying their bid to lock up home-field advantage for the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n

Still, San Diego remains firmly focused on the bigger picture.<\/p>\n

The Padres entered September clinging to a Wild Card spot before turning in a major league-best 16-5 month, surging into position to potentially host a postseason series at Petco Park. What once looked like a team headed toward disappointment has become one that nobody is eager to face in October.<\/p>\n

Friday’s loss, however, highlighted one potential concern heading into the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Right-hander Casey Mize allowed seven earned runs over four innings and afterward acknowledged the frustration of battling through an ankle injury while the rest of the team is trending upward.<\/p>\n

“We have so much good things going on this team, and for me to be going the opposite direction is tough,” Mize said.<\/a> “I feel like I’m just grinding through and trying to do what I can, but obviously it’s nowhere close to good enough.”<\/p>\n

The Padres have relied on a second-half turnaround fueled by stars such as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill, improved starting pitching and a dominant bullpen. Since late July, the club has gone from below .500 to one of the National League’s most dangerous postseason teams.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tThe Dodgers chase a third straight World Series title as the Brewers and Rays lead the challengers. We break down the biggest stories heading into October.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

That’s why manager Craig Stammen wasn’t interested in treating Friday’s defeat as anything more than a temporary setback.<\/p>\n

“[Losing this game] doesn’t really complicate anything, we [just] got to go out and win a baseball game,” Stammen said<\/a>. “Getting blown out, we were able to get some of those guys off their feet a little bit. So a version of our best lineup will be in the game tomorrow.”<\/p>\n

Now, the Padres will try to turn the page quickly, with Walker Buehler set to start Saturday as San Diego gets another opportunity to secure home-field advantage for the Wild Card Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The San Diego Padres may have missed an opportunity to clinch the National League’s No. 4 seed Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476824,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":["post-476823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","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\/476823","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=476823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476823\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}