How the schedule could help Padres in Wild Card chase

This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It’s now-or-never time for the 2023 Padres.

And not merely because their current four-game losing streak has pushed them perilously close to falling from the National League Wild Card race entirely.

The next four weeks will offer the Padres every chance to fight their way back into that race. But, well, they’re going to have to play a lot better than they’ve been playing lately.

“Listen, this is it,” said shortstop Xander Bogaerts after the Padres' 6-1 loss in Seattle on Wednesday. “We’ve still got a chance. We don’t control our destiny; we’re not in first place. But we do control it a little bit, because we’re playing the teams that are right above us.

“That’s at least a luxury we have, although it’s been bad.”

And, you know what? He’s not wrong.

Not only are the Padres in a position in the standings where they need to start reeling off victories. They're also at a place in their schedule where those victories would be immensely valuable.

Over the next four weeks, the Padres will play 26 games. A whopping 20 of those come against fellow NL Wild Card contenders, beginning Friday with a three-game series against the similarly struggling D-backs.

“We’ve got Arizona coming up now -- we need to win, doesn’t matter who it is,” Manny Machado said. “We’ve got to play good baseball, play the baseball we can play. Obviously the last few days we haven’t. We’ve got to turn the page … and come to play, because we know they’re going to bring it.”

Consider the current Wild Card picture. Seven teams are in the mix for four spots (one of which goes to the NL Central winner). Among those seven teams, over the next four weeks, the Padres play the D-backs six times, the Giants four, and the Marlins, Brewers and Phillies thrice.

“We’re playing the guys that are in front of us,” Bogaerts said. “We know what’s ahead of us. We know the task might not be easy. But this is a team that talent-wise, we have everything that we want.”

Recently, the playoff picture has gained some clarity. Sure, the Padres only lost half a game in the standings over the past week, despite their 1-5 record. That’s a product of some other contenders struggling.

But it’s little consolation, because the Phillies and Giants have pulled ahead, gaining a firm hold on the first two Wild Card spots. If one other contender gets red-hot -- and remember the 2021 Cardinals toppled the Padres with a 17-game September winning streak -- it’ll be a steep uphill climb. No, among that group, it needs to be the Padres who get hot.

“We’ve got to go out there and hopefully pull some strings together, win more than a couple games in a row,” Machado said. “We’ve got to get hot. But if any team can do it, I think this is the team in here.”