The National League Wild Card race is going to go to the last day of the regular season. The Arizona Diamondbacks lead the San Diego Padres by half a game for the final NL wild card spot, and with three weeks to play, neither team has enough margin to relax.
Arizona has been the surprise story of the second half. Written off after a disappointing first two months, the Diamondbacks caught fire in July and have not slowed down. Corbin Carroll is back to being an MVP candidate, the rotation has stabilized behind Zac Gallen and Ryne Nelson, and the bullpen has been quietly one of the best in the league since the trade deadline.
San Diego, meanwhile, is the team every executive expected to be in this position. Big payroll, star talent up and down the roster, and a manager in Mike Shildt who has already gotten this team to overachieve. Fernando Tatis Jr. is healthy, Manny Machado is having a bounce-back season, and the pitching staff features multiple guys with playoff experience.
The head-to-head schedule remaining is what makes this so brutal. The two teams meet six more times before the season ends, including a three-game series in Phoenix during the final week. Every game is essentially a playoff game already.
For context, both teams have losing records against the Dodgers and Giants, which means the NL West schedule is not doing anyone favors. That leaves games against non-playoff teams as the swing games. Whoever handles that stretch better makes it in.
The Diamondbacks have a slight edge in schedule difficulty. They finish with a stretch against the Rockies, White Sox, and Nationals that on paper looks manageable. The Padres have to navigate the Cardinals, Reds, and a Dodgers series that could get very ugly.
Padres general manager AJ Preller is not going to sit still if San Diego falls out of it. He made a huge trade at the deadline for pitching depth, and he is expected to be even more aggressive next offseason if the club misses the playoffs. That kind of pressure is felt in a clubhouse.
For Arizona, this is house money. The team was 20 games under .500 in early June. Making the playoffs from that hole would be one of the best in-season turnarounds in recent NL history, and it would give the Diamondbacks massive momentum heading into an offseason where they have real financial flexibility.
Buckle up for the next three weeks. Late-September baseball is why this sport exists, and this race is going to deliver.
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.
