Padres Secure Playoff Berth, Vie for Top NL Wild Card Seed

For the third straight season and the fifth time in the last seven seasons, the San Diego Padres are heading to the postseason. The Padres punched their ticket with Thursday's win over the  Los Angeles Dodgers . The Dodgers have already clinched the NL West, which means San Diego is locked into a wild-card berth. The exact seeding will be sorted out in the coming days.

As recently as Sept. 8, the Padres were a half-game behind the Arizona Diamondbacks for the third wild-card spot. The two teams have gone in very different directions since then and the Padres' surge has left the Diamondbacks in the dust -- and outside the playoff picture.

The Padres joined the league as an expansion team in 1969 and they are still searching for their first World Series title. The franchise has two National League pennants (1984 and 1998) but zero championships. Here now are three reasons the 2026 Padres have a chance to end the drought and bring the first World Series to San Diego.

1. The offense is humming

For the first three months or so, the Padres had the lowest scoring offense in baseball. Things changed in early July, specifically on July 8. The Padres scored 10 runs against the D-backs that day, one more run than their previous four games combined, and since that day, they have been one of the game's best offensive teams. Here are the before and after numbers:

AVG/OBP/SLG Runs per game Homers per game

Through July 7

.224/.300/.371

3.87

1.04

Since July 7

.267/.342/.434

5.10

1.27

During those first three months or so, the Padres were an obvious case of "their players just need to be better." They had the talent in place needed to win, but their core -- specifically Manny Machado , Jackson Merrill , and Fernando Tatis Jr . -- had underwhelmed. That has changed. Those three, plus the emergent Ty France , have really carried the offense the last few weeks.

(Tatis now has 25 home runs despite not hitting his first until May 30, in the team's 57th game.)

Nothing specific happened on July 8. It's just a convenient date, narratively, but the point stands. For more than three months, the Padres had one of the game's most feeble offenses. Over the last two months and change, it has been one of the game's best, and it is the single biggest reason San Diego has charged up the standings and secured a wild-card spot.

2. The bullpen is impenetrable

Impenetrable is an overstatement, but the late-inning tandem of Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller is the best in the game. Do not overlook rookie righty Bradgley Rodriguez either; he brings upper-90s gas and a power low-90s changeup that boasts one of the game's highest swing-and-miss rates. Miller, Morejon, and Rodriguez have a combined 2.14 ERA in 226 innings.

Lefties Yuki Matsui and Wandy Peralta provide different matchup options for the middle innings -- Matsui is a splitter/slider guy and Peralta brings the funk -- and righty David Morgan is beginning to carve out a role. Randy Vásquez, who spent most of the season in the rotation, is now in the bullpen as well. The battle-tested Walker Buehler could find himself in the postseason bullpen too.

Bottom line: if the Padres have a lead after five innings in the postseason, it's game over. Miller, Morejon, and Rodriguez are an excellent end-game trio and they've all shown the ability to go more than one inning as well. Four outs apiece equals four innings of shutdown bullpen work -- we're talking power arms who miss bats and limit balls in play -- whenever they have a lead.

3. The rotation has been upgraded

Granted, neither Casey Mize nor Robbie Ray has pitched well since joining the Padres at the trade deadline, but the potential for effectiveness (and much more than that) exists in a way it didn't for the patchwork rotation San Diego employed earlier this season. Also, Nick Pivetta returned from his lengthy elbow injury earlier this month and has looked very good in his three starts.

Manager Craig Stammen was forced to use openers and bullpen games regularly earlier this year. There were days it wasn't clear how he would navigate nine innings. Now he has a contender-worthy 1-2 punch in Pivetta and Michael King , plus veterans who aren't out of place as a 3-4 starter in the postseason in Mize and Ray. The rotation's floor and ceiling have been raised.

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_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/padres-clinch-playoff-berth-first-world-series/)._