The Dodgers and San Diego Padres went down to the wire in the National League West race. Now they’ll square off in the best-of-five NL Division Series, with the fourth-seeded Padres advancing through the wild-card round with a two-game sweep of the Atlanta Braves.
The Padres will be familiar postseason foes. The Dodgers swept San Diego in the 2020 NLDS en route to a World Series win, then were upset in four games in the 2022 NLDS despite finishing 22 games ahead of them that season.
This season the Padres halted a decade and a half of futility against the Dodgers, posting a winning record in the rivalry (8-5) for the first time since 2010. However, the Dodgers prevailed when it mattered most, clinching the division by taking two of three games at Chavez Ravine in late September.
Now, the sides will square off in a heavyweight bout. The Dodgers had baseball’s best record at 98-64. But the Padres finished the season strongest, winning 43 games, most in the majors, after the All-Star break.
Here are nine things to know about the Padres ahead of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium on Saturday at 5:38 p.m.:
1. Second-half surge
It wasn’t long ago the Padres were only a 50-50 team. During their first 100 games, their lineup was scuffling, suffering from an injury to Fernando Tatis Jr. and first-half struggles from Manny Machado, Xander Bogaerts and others. Their bullpen was shaky, ranking in the bottom-third of the majors in reliever earned-run average. And marquee trades for Dylan Cease in the spring and Luis Arráez in May had done little to inspire a higher level of play.
Yet, Padres general manager A.J. Preller remained determined to make additions. And as his team heated up, Preller went all in at the trade deadline.
Preller bolstered the bullpen. He upgraded the rotation. And by the end of July, the combination of improvements and acquisitions had made the Padres baseball’s hottest team.
San Diego finished the season on a 43-19 run, a stretch in which it ranked top-five in both scoring and team ERA. It cut a 10-game deficit in the division down to two, before the Dodgers finally pulled away during the final week.
And that form carried over into this week’s wild-card series, with the Padres blanking the Braves 4-0 in Game 1 before advancing via a victory in Game 2 on Wednesday.
2. Contact-heavy offense
There are two things the Padres did better than any other lineup this season: collect hits, leading the majors with a .263 team batting average, and put the ball in play, with their 17.6% strikeout rate easily the lowest in the majors.
Arráez played a key role, winning his third straight batting title (and denying Shohei Ohtani a potential triple crown) by batting a league-leading .314. Machado, veteran outfielder Jurickson Profar and rookie center fielder Jackson Merrill also batted better than .275, making San Diego the only team with at least four qualified .275 hitters (Tatis also finished above that mark after returning from a thigh injury in August, as did midseason signing Donovan Solano).
The Padres were especially effective against off-speed pitches. Their .715 on-base-plus-slugging percentage against pitches other than fastballs was second best in baseball, trailing only the Dodgers.
3. Pitching, pitching, pitching
The real key to the Padres’ late-season run was sudden improvement on the mound. After ranking 20th in first-half team ERA, their 3.38 mark after the All-Star break led the league and was fourth best in baseball.
During that span, starters Michael King, Joe Musgrove and Cease (who comprised the wild-card-round rotation, though Musgrove left his Game 2 start with an elbow injury) all posted sub-3.00 ERAs. Deadline acquisition Martin Pérez was doing the same until his regular-season finale. Veteran right-hander Yu Darvish rounded out the rotation after returning from a groin strain in September.
Meanwhile, Preller’s high-profile bullpen additions — including left-hander Tanner Scott and right-handers Jason Adam and Bryan Hoeing — helped give San Diego one of the most formidable groups of relievers in the game. During their second-half surge, opponents batted just .221 while striking out 25% of the time.
4. Machado’s resurgence
When the Padres missed the playoffs following a second-half flameout last year, many fingers were pointed at Machado — the confident, but not always consistent, face of the franchise at third base.
This year has been a different story for the one-time Dodger and 13-year veteran. The slugger’s numbers were up across the board in the second half (.267, 13 home runs and 52 RBIs in 91 games before the break; .286, 16 and 53 in 61 games after). He also blossomed as the emotional leader of San Diego’s clubhouse, culminating with his role in the game-ending triple play against the Dodgers last month to punch the Padres’ postseason ticket.
Also of note: Machado’s past two postseason meetings with the Dodgers. In San Diego’s 2020 NLDS loss, he was just two for 12 with one RBI. In 2022, he went five for 14 in the win, his most hits in a playoff series since the 2018 NL Championship Series he played with the Dodgers.
5. Tatis’ return
When these teams met in the 2022 playoffs, the Padres were without Tatis, who was serving a suspension for testing positive for a performance-enhancing substance. This time Tatis is not only available, but also in the midst of one of the hotter stretches of his career.
After returning from his 2½-month absence in early September, the two-time All-Star had seven home runs and a .908 OPS in his final 21 regular-season games. Then, he kicked off the wild-card series with a first-inning, two-run homer against the Braves.
Tatis has been particularly good against the Dodgers this season, batting .350 against them (best on the Padres) with three home runs (trailing only Machado’s five) in 11 games.
6. Rookie sensation
In any other season — one that didn’t include a historic debut from Pittsburgh pitcher Paul Skenes — Merrill would have run away with rookie of the year. He and the Padres will take a postseason run instead.
One of the few top prospects Preller hasn’t traded in recent seasons, Merrill not only hit .292 with 24 home runs and 90 RBIs, closing with a staggering .945 OPS in the second half, but also the former shortstop did it while playing center field for the first time in his pro career (and a solid center field at that).
Merrill also led the Padres with 31 doubles, ranked second with 16 steals and was one of only three players in the majors with multiple walk-off home runs.
7. Options for Ohtani
If there’s one thing the Padres are built to handle, it’s late-game matchups against imposing left-handed hitters. And when it comes to facing Shohei Ohtani, the Padres possess one particularly potent weapon.
When San Diego acquired Scott at the deadline, it got one of the few pitchers who has handled Ohtani in his decorated career. In 10 plate appearances against Scott, Ohtani is just one for nine with one walk and three strikeouts. Among pitchers he has faced 10 times in the majors, only seven have held him to a lower average than Scott’s .111.
Ohtani had been hitless against Scott until their most recent meeting, when he whacked the go-ahead single in the Dodgers’ division-clinching win.
Scott isn’t the only option for Padres manager Mike Shildt to deploy against the soon-to-be three-time most valuable player, either. Fellow left-hander Wandy Peralta has held Ohtani to a two-for-seven mark with one walk in eight meetings. The Padres have two other southpaws in their bullpen in Adrian Morejon and Yuki Matsui, though Ohtani is a combined six for nine against those two.
8. Veteran lineup depth
Even if the Dodgers handle Arráez, Machado, Tatis and Merrill, the Padres have other bats capable of wreaking havoc in their lineup.
Profar, an 11th-year switch-hitter who was part of the Padres’ 2022 team, had a career season as a first-time All-Star, batting .280 with 24 home runs, 85 RBIs and an .800-plus OPS from both sides of the plate, ascending to the No. 3 spot in the batting order.
Solano went from being a minor-league signing to the Padres’ primary first baseman, hitting .286 in 96 games, while another midseason minor-league addition, former Dodgers outfielder David Peralta, hit .286 as a reliable bat off the bench.
Bogaerts, the team’s $280-million signing two offseasons ago, might have had the biggest second-half turnaround, rebounding from a wretched first half — his OPS was under .600 through July 21 — by hitting .291 over his final 59 games.
About the only Padres regular who struggled late in the year was infielder Jake Cronenworth, who hit .215 after the All-Star break. Yet he still drew a team-high 31 walks in that stretch.
As far as injuries go, the only key piece the Padres are missing is Gold Glove utility man Ha-Seong Kim, who is out the rest of the year because of a shoulder injury.
9. Vulnerable closer
If there is one player of concern for San Diego, it is hard-throwing closer Robert Suárez.
While his 36 saves (in 42 opportunities) were fourth most in the majors, he had with a 6.00 ERA in September. During that time, he struck out just nine batters in 12 innings, blew three of his 10 save opportunities and was the one who loaded the bases against the Dodgers before the Padres turned their game-ending triple play.
Suárez still was called upon with a four-run ninth-inning lead in Game 1 of the wild-card series and managed to toss a scoreless inning. He also got the save with a scoreless ninth in Game 2. But for a team that has become accustomed to having a lockdown bullpen, he represents one potential area of weakness — especially facing a Dodgers team that led the majors with 43 comeback wins, including five in the ninth inning of games.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.