radical pitching plan<\/a> instituted for the final 10 games before the trade deadline.<\/p>\nThere 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.<\/p>\n
Machado started coming through just enough and Ty France kept coming through.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But perhaps the biggest thing that bodes well for them as they begin the playoffs is this:<\/p>\n
\u201cTo get to where we\u2019re at today, we had to play some good baseball,\u201d Machado said Monday. \u201cJust continue doing that, and I think we\u2019ll be just fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
That can be much easier said than done when it comes to the postseason.<\/p>\n
There is no denying playoff baseball is a different beast to conquer.<\/p>\n
The crowds are bigger and louder. The scrutiny is harsher. The stakes are monumental and more immediately realized.<\/p>\n
But the Padres\u2019 reality is that they have been in postseason mode off and on (mostly on) for two months.<\/p>\n
They closed so well because they had to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been playing with our backs against the wall for a while now,\u201d Jake Cronenworth said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
But the Padres ran short on tomorrows a long time ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight before the trade deadline,\u201d Cronenworth said of when that was. \u201c\u2026 That was our season. Especially with all the trade rumors that were happening. \u2026 I think it was a realization. Like, \u2018Hey, this is it.\u2019 I think it\u2019s good we were playing these games that early.\u201d<\/p>\n
That isn\u2019t just hindsight. Those are the things they were saying in the midst of trying to secure a playoff berth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know we have to play our best baseball right now,\u201d France said in early September, when the Padres were a half-game out of playoff position. \u201c\u2026 Every game is important. And at the end of every game, there\u2019s 28 guys sitting in here catching their breath, going, \u2018Man, that was a grind.\u2019 But that\u2019s expected at this point in the year and when you\u2019re on a team that\u2019s competing. That\u2019s what it\u2019s going to be like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, just because the Padres head into the postseason as MLB\u2019s hottest-hitting and most successful team over the past two months does not mean they will continue to perform that way.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t score for two games.<\/p>\n
There are only small sample sizes in the postseason, and this Padres team has shown it can go cold.<\/p>\n
It was just Sept. 2 that they lost for the eighth time in nine games.<\/p>\n
But even how they responded to that skid was illustrative of their greatest strength this season.<\/p>\n
It was a tenet of rookie manager Craig Stammen that adversity is a necessary component of success<\/a>.<\/p>\nAsked to reflect Sunday on how well the Padres finished and what his thoughts were on getting to 91 victories, Stammen returned to his mantra.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the best part about it is we battled some tough times,: he said. \u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the playoffs present a lot of ups and downs \u2014 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\u2019s a good lesson to be learned, and it builds resilience and toughness. And those are good traits to have in the postseason.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was bad. A-few-losses-from-selling bad. On July 23, 11 days before the MLB trade deadline, the Padres were…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127,1696],"class_list":["post-478903","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","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478903","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=478903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}