Padres Get Bad News on $108 Million Starting Pitcher As Opening Day Approaches
The dog days of late July and August are usually a section of the schedule when the Major League season becomes a grind for many teams. But last season, they were the happiest days for the San Diego Padres. The National League West club went on a tear, ripping off 19 wins in 22 games from July 20 to August 14, then putting together a solid 24-13 record the rest of the way to play themselves into the postseason as a Wild Card with 93 wins on the season.
The Friars defeated the Atlanta Braves in a two-game Wild Card round sweep, then pushed the eventual World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers to the full five games before bowing out at the Division Series stage.
Now, the Padres head into the 2025 campaign looking to make the playoffs in back-to-back years for only the second time since joining the NL as an expansion team in 1969, and first since 2005 and 2006.
Friars Have Enjoyed Relatively Healthy Spring
Of course, the Padres would hope to do even better than that. The San Diego club has made only two World Series appearances in its history, winning only one World Series game. That came in 1984, when they lost to the Detroit Tigers four games to one. The Padres were next in the Fall Classic in 1998 when they had the misfortune to run into a New York Yankees juggernaut that had won 114 regular season games and swept the Padres in four straight.
