The National League has one real race left, and it is a good one. San Diego and Arizona are fighting over the sixth and final playoff spot with roughly two weeks to go.
Right now the Padres have it. They entered Monday holding a 2.5-game lead over the Diamondbacks for that last slot, riding a seven-game winning streak that is their longest since April. Timing is everything in September, and San Diego picked the right two weeks to get hot.
The Padres are also within striking distance of something better. They sit 1.5 games behind both the Cubs and the Phillies, which means the sixth seed is the floor, not the ceiling. Win out and they could host a wild card series instead of flying somewhere cold.
Arizona has been every bit as good lately. The Diamondbacks did not climb back into this thing by accident, and a 2.5-game gap with two weeks left is a deficit, not a death sentence. One bad San Diego weekend and this is a tie.
Why the Padres Have the Edge
Start with the obvious: 2.5 games is real. In mid-September, every game of separation is worth more than it was in June because there are simply fewer chances left to make it up. Arizona has to be better than San Diego by roughly three games over a two-week stretch, and that requires the Padres to actually slip.
Then there is the rotation. San Diego’s front-line starters are built for exactly this kind of September, where every game feels like a playoff game and you need somebody who can shorten it. That matters more in a 12-game sprint than it does across a full season.
The bullpen is the bigger separator. The Padres have spent years assembling relief arms who can lock down a one-run lead, and close games are what decide races like this. Arizona’s path requires winning a lot of games it is trailing in the sixth inning, and that is a hard way to make up ground.
Why Arizona Could Still Do It
The Diamondbacks are the more explosive offense, and an offense that can put up seven runs on a random Tuesday is the kind of team that goes 10-2 out of nowhere. Arizona has done this before. This is a franchise that turned a wild card berth into a pennant not that long ago, and that experience is not nothing.
The other thing working for Arizona is that San Diego’s streak is unsustainable by definition. Seven straight wins is great. Nobody wins seven straight twice in a row. When the Padres cool off, and they will, the gap closes fast if Arizona keeps scoring.
Give me the Padres.
Not because Arizona is bad, but because 2.5 games plus a better bullpen plus a rotation built for tight games is too much to overcome in two weeks. The Diamondbacks would need to play close to .750 baseball while San Diego plays under .500, and there is nothing in San Diego’s recent form suggesting a collapse is coming.
I also think the Padres are the better bet to move up rather than down. Being 1.5 back of the Cubs and Phillies with this pitching staff is a real opportunity, and a team chasing something upward tends to hold off the team chasing it from below.
San Diego gets in. Arizona finishes two or three games short and spends the winter thinking about the six weeks in June and July when it played like a .450 team. That is where this race was actually decided.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.