Slam Diego is tired.<\/p>\n
The San Diego Padres are right there \u2014 but right there isn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
They have four Wild Card appearances in the last six years and have not finished higher than second place to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.<\/p>\n
Since 2020, San Diego has 13 playoff wins, the most<\/a> in that span without a World Series appearance.<\/p>\n The Padres don\u2019t need to make any spectacular moves to get over the hump. They have enough star power on their roster to get to the top.<\/p>\n Merrill and Tatis Lead the Bats<\/p>\n Jackson Merrill<\/a> needs to have a breakout season. In his rookie year, he was named an All-Star but had his second year derailed by injuries<\/a>.<\/p>\n He\u2019s elite at hitting pitches to all parts of the field. The 22-year-old is an aggressive batter, which leads to him opening up the zone and chasing pitches, taking unnecessary strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, Merrill is a prime candidate to finish with a 30-30 season.<\/p>\n He also has a ton of range in center field for the Padres.<\/p>\n The Padres have the back end of Manny Machado\u2019s<\/a> and Xander Bogaerts<\/a>\u2018 primes. Machado has hit<\/a> at least 25 home runs in all six seasons as a Padre (excluding the shortened 2020 season).<\/p>\n Bogaerts excels against lefty pitchers, with a batting average<\/a> of .303 against left-handers, according to StatMuse, which is over his career batting average<\/a> of .287 overall.<\/p>\n But with an aging core of All-Stars in Machado and Bogaerts, the Padres are ready to rely on Merrill to get the bats going.<\/p>\n In the Padres\u2019 last three elimination games, they have averaged 1.6 runs. Come playoff time, their bats must get to work early if or when their backs are against the wall.\u00a0<\/p>\n They also have Fernando Tatis Jr<\/a>, another aggressive player.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tatis has stolen<\/a> at least 25 bases in three of his last four seasons. He\u2019s the Padres\u2019 guy who shifts the momentum and gets them closer to scoring position.<\/p>\n The three-time All-Star led<\/a> all right-fielders with 15 defensive runs saved last year.<\/p>\n A Front Core of Veteran Pitchers<\/p>\n Former All-Star Joe Musgrove <\/a>missed<\/a> the entire 2025 season with Tommy John surgery. He\u2019s currently<\/a> on the 15-day injury list with elbow inflammation. The Padres will need the 33-year-old\u2019s high-spin curve and fastball in the 95-98 mph range to help their pitching depth.<\/p>\n Their ace pitcher, Nick Pivetta<\/a>, has a four-seam fastball and high-spin curveball of his own.\u00a0Last season, he recorded <\/a>his best ERA of 2.87 and notched <\/a>a career-best 13 wins.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Musgrove can return to form and Pivetta can replicate last season, the Padres have multiple terrific pitchers to depend on.<\/p>\n They also added Walker Buehler<\/a>. The two-time All-Star has an element of a four-seam fastball and a high spin rate on breaking pitches. Buehler brings in championship experience to a team that\u2019s been knocking on the door the last few years.<\/p>\n In the bullpen, they have one of the best closers in baseball, Mason Miller<\/a>. He has an elite slider and a fastball that easily goes over 100 mph. His last earned run allowed <\/a>was Aug. 5 against Arizona. In that same span, he\u2019s pitched 24.3 innings, given <\/a>up four hits, and struck out 52 batters.<\/p>\n He even debuted a closer entrance this season for when he makes his way to the mound.<\/p>\n The Padres have a star-studded team that\u2019s aging, and they must value the remaining prime of their core.<\/p>\n San Diego isn\u2019t breaking through in the regular season; they will need to do that in the playoffs.<\/p>\n They have the star power to do so, now it\u2019s just about executing and putting it all together.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slam Diego is tired. The San Diego Padres are right there \u2014 but right there isn\u2019t there. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":657413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,920,871,1531,1101,4,45,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-657412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-fernando-tatis-jr","10":"tag-jackson-merrill","11":"tag-joe-musgrove","12":"tag-mason-miller","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-nick-pivetta","15":"tag-padres","16":"tag-san-diego","17":"tag-san-diego-padres","18":"tag-sandiego","19":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116331507256453348","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=657412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/657412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=657412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=657412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=657412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}