3 Keys to Big Week Ahead for San Diego Padres
The final week of the 2024 MLB regular season for the San Diego Padres will arguably be one of the most anticipated in franchise history.
With a sweep of the Chicago White Sox at Petco Park over the weekend, the Padres enter Tuesday’s series opener at Chavez Ravine against the Los Angeles Dodgers with plenty of momentum and confidence. San Diego is 40-17 since the All-Star break (the best record during that span in all of MLB) and the Padres are just 3.0 games behind the Dodgers in the National League West standings.
By the way, the Padres have won seven of the first 10 meetings this season against Los Angeles, meaning San Diego will own any kind of tiebreaker with the Dodgers should there be one at the top of the division.
With three games left in Los Angeles and three left on the road against the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego already has a postseason berth all but locked up. Now the Padres can simply focus on seeing if they can catch the Dodgers in the division standings.
So how could the Padres do that? Here are three things to watch for the Padres in the regular season’s final week.
Padres Rotation Must Keep Excelling
Since the All-Star break, San Diego’s pitchers have combined for a 3.30 ERA, good for third-best among all MLB teams during that stretch. Only the Tampa Bay Rays (3.13) and Detroit Tigers (3.14) entered Tuesday’s play with better numbers.
Opponents are hitting just .219 against Padres pitchers since the Midsummer Classic, tied for the second-best among MLB pitching staffs.
Success in San Diego, however, starts with the rotation, which has posted a 1.23 ERA over the last two weeks. Sure, names such as Dylan Cease and Joe Musgrove are expected to pitch at that level, but it’s been the return of Yu Darvish and the addition of Martin Perez that has really turned San Diego’s rotation into a lethal weapon.
Darvish’s return in late August after missing a significant stretch of the season to deal with personal matters could not have come at a better time for San Diego. In his four starts since returning, Darvish has posted a 3.15 ERA and struck out 21 in 20 innings.
Perez, acquired in a trade deadline deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates, has a 2.61 ERA in his nine starts spanning 48.1 innings. However, his 4.68 FIP is something to watch as it indicates fortune has favored him since donning the brown and gold.
If San Diego’s pitchers can maintain their level of excellence over the final week of the season, it could give the Padres an edge against a pair of NL West rivals who have had injury and inconsistency issues with their own rotations.
