This story was excerpted from AJ Cassavell’s Padres Beat newsletter. With AJ on vacation this week, Mike Petriello pinch-hits for this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It could have been a gut punch, the news that Fernando Tatis Jr. not only would not be returning from injury later this month, but that he would be ineligible for the rest of the year -- postseason included -- and into next year because of a positive test for a performance-enhancing substance and ensuing suspension. Maybe it still will be.

But if there’s a silver lining here, it’s this: The Padres never had him. They haven’t lost a great player, they’re just not adding one. They’re still in playoff position; they’re still looking at Wild Card odds of about 80%. “He hasn’t been part of our team all year, and we’ve gotten this far without him,” Manny Machado aptly said.

• MLB announces 2022 playoff schedule

And that -- it should probably go without saying but obviously will be discussed nonetheless -- is largely because of Machado, who is probably best described with a word you wouldn’t likely have applied to him when he was an up-and-coming young Oriole: consistent. 

Think about all that’s happened to this year’s Padres team since the baseball world restarted in March, which was followed almost immediately by word that Tatis had broken his wrist in an offseason motorcycle accident.

There were the trades for Sean Manaea and Taylor Rogers just before the season opened; there was a season-long inability to slug; there were ups followed by downs from Joe Musgrove, and downs followed by ups from Blake Snell; there were, obviously, the franchise-shattering days that brought in Juan Soto, Josh Bell, Josh Hader and Brandon Drury, shipping out Eric Hosmer, Luke Voit and a farm system’s worth of prospects. Now, there’s Tatis’ latest inability to be available.

Through it all, there’s been Machado, the only Padres batter to slug over .420, at least among those with more than 55 plate appearances. (He’s at .527.) He’s having, in many ways, a career year, at least in the sense that his 156 OPS+ would be a personal best for him in a full-length season. As he finishes up the final season of his 20s, he’s got 272 career homers, which is not only going to be a top-25 number before age 30 in the post-war era, but is also more than Barry Bonds, Reggie Jackson or Mike Schmidt hit by that age.

Throw in defense that’s still quite good, if not quite as otherworldly as it was in his youth, and Machado is third in the NL in wins above replacement, which ought to at least get him into the Most Valuable Player discussion. 

You knew all about the talent, of course, but how about his durability? As a young Oriole, Machado's 2013 season ended early when he suffered a left knee injury that not only required surgery but delayed his 2014 debut by nearly a month. Three months later, his 2014 ended early as well thanks to a right knee injury that also required surgery. At just 21 years old, that kind of thing can get you a reputation.

Now, look at the Major League games played and plate appearances leaders since 2015:

Games played
1. Paul Goldschmidt: 1,115
2. Machado: 1,113

Plate appearances
1. Machado: 4,823
2. Goldschmidt: 4,816

Think about how many games that is, how much availability, since the dual knee injuries that seemingly threatened his career earlier on. There have been six full seasons since then -- that’s six times 162 games -- plus the 60-game 2020, plus the 118 games the Padres have played through Monday. That’s 1,150 games. Machado has played in 1,113, or nearly 97% of them.

He hasn’t been on the injured list since. If you need to find him, he’s in the lineup. He’s pushing this San Diego team toward October in a season when most of his pre-Soto lineup-mates weren’t exactly supporting him. And in a dozen years or so, there’s somewhere else you’ll be able to find him: Cooperstown, N.Y.