clinching a third consecutive postseason berth<\/a>, the San Diego Padres beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 10-7 to secure the National League\u2019s No. 4 seed and home-field advantage in their Wild Card Series against the Chicago Cubs.<\/p>\nIn a game that felt like a playoff preview, Padres third baseman Manny Machado hit his 30th home run of the season \u2014 and the 399th of his career \u2014 in the bottom of the fourth. The three-run go-ahead shot came after San Diego manager Craig Stammen went to his bullpen, lifting starter Walker Buehler with a 4-3 deficit, in the top of the fourth.<\/p>\n
For the first time in their history, the Padres (90-71) have won at least 90 games three straight seasons. Beginning Tuesday at Petco Park, they will host the Cubs in a best-of-three series and a rematch of last year\u2019s Wild Card Series at Wrigley Field, where Chicago won a decisive third game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a great team. They\u2019ve got a lot of great players, a good coaching staff, so it\u2019ll be tightly contested,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cThey\u2019re the ones that knocked us out of the playoffs last year, so we\u2019re going to have to bring our \u2018A\u2019 game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres are 50-30 at home. They finished 40-41 on the road and 1-5 overall against the Cubs (88-73).<\/p>\n
The two teams completed their season series July 1 at Wrigley Field, with the Cubs handing the Padres their most lopsided loss ever (23-3). Later that month, the Padres embarked on what has become an MLB-best 40-18 run. In that span, they are 23-6 at Petco Park.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe would love to bring the playoffs, the wild-card (series) home, and then you never know,\u201d new Padres owner Jos\u00e9 E. Feliciano said Thursday at Dodger Stadium after the team clinched a playoff berth. \u201cWe have demonstrated that we can beat anybody right now. We\u2019re the best team in baseball right now, so bring it on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Petco Park last hosted playoff games in 2024, when the Padres swept a Wild Card Series against the Atlanta Braves before falling to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLDS.<\/p>\n
San Diego right-hander Michael King will start Tuesday\u2019s postseason opener.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO \u2014 Playoff baseball will return to Petco Park next week. On Saturday, two nights after clinching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862790,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[479,363,2328,99],"class_list":["post-862789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-mlb","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}