Padres flip NL West right into a tussle with contributions from Deadline pickups – MLB.com

AJ Cassavell
SAN FRANCISCO — The Padres didn’t do all they did at the Trade Deadline with the intention of merely sneaking right into a Wild Card spot.
No, they’ve their eyes squarely on the National League West — a crown they haven’t worn in 19 years.
And proper now, they’re making their transfer.
San Diego has received 12 of its final 15 video games — the newest a 4-1 victory over the Giants at Oracle Park on Monday evening. Because the Padres have been celebrating that victory, the first-place Dodgers have been within the means of dropping their sequence opener in opposition to the Angels in Anaheim.
These outcomes go away Los Angeles clinging to a one-game lead — as shut because the Padres have been to first place in two months and as shut as they’ve been to first place post-All-Star break in any season since 2010.
“In fact we see it,” stated heart fielder Jackson Merrill, who pounded out three hits in opposition to Giants ace Logan Webb. “However we’re simply enjoying our personal sport.”
Certainly they’re. Yu Darvish was glorious over six innings of one-run ball on Monday evening. The brand new-look bullpen was even higher, with Mason Miller punching out all three Giants he confronted. Catcher Freddy Fermin launched his first homer together with his new membership to place the sport out of attain within the seventh.
It was fairly a means for the Padres to begin a vital stretch on their schedule through which they play 13 straight video games in opposition to division rivals. They face the Giants — the workforce at the moment behind them within the NL West standings — six extra occasions over the subsequent two weeks. They’ll play the Dodgers — the workforce so tantalizingly inside attain — six occasions as nicely.
“That is August/September baseball proper right here at its greatest,” stated left fielder Gavin Sheets. “You get divisional opponents again to again. Then, they arrive to our place. It’s going to be a extremely good stretch of baseball.
“I’m excited for it. I do know we’re excited for it. We’re constructed for this.”
In the event that they weren’t already, common supervisor A.J. Preller ensured as a lot on July 31, when he swung 5 trades involving 22 gamers on a frenzied Commerce Deadline day. Within the course of, he addressed just about each space of want on the roster, boldly declaring, “In the event you’re going to win a championship, you possibly can’t have any weak hyperlinks.”
These strikes have already got paid main dividends. On Monday, the Padres’ two greatest Deadline upgrades made all of the distinction — the underside of their lineup and the again finish of their bullpen.
Fermin’s seventh-inning homer capped a go-ahead three-run rally created solely by the bottom-third of the lineup — the workforce’s most obvious pre-Deadline weak spot. Sheets, who had been largely relegated to a bench position, sparked that rally with a leadoff double and completed 2-for-3.
“What are you able to say about Gavin Sheets?” stated Padres supervisor Mike Shildt. “That man saved his head within the sport, hasn’t been in a position to get the at-bats he was getting early and accepted it like a professional, stayed prepared for his teammates.”
Staked to a late lead, the Padres’ bullpen provided no lifeline. Jeremiah Estrada, Miller and Robert Suarez nailed down the seventh, eighth and ninth innings, respectively. Even by his lofty requirements, Miller was electrical, inducing whiffs on six of the Giants’ eight swings in opposition to him.
“It’s thrilling,” Sheets stated. “Clearly we all know the strain we are able to placed on different groups simply with the bullpen we have now. While you use the bullpen like that as a weapon and you’ve got a extremely deep lineup, it simply places loads of strain on the opposite workforce.”
Exactly what Preller envisioned. Roughly one quarter of the season stays. (The common season, that’s.) The Padres are inside hanging distance within the division and in competition for a bye. They’re now one sport again of the Cubs for the highest Wild Card spot (and home-field benefit of their first playoff sequence).
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The subsequent two weekends will see the Padres play a pair of three-game sequence in opposition to the rival Dodgers, first in L.A. starting Friday, then at Petco Park starting the next Friday. The stakes shall be as excessive as any August sequence San Diego has performed in current reminiscence.
However very first thing’s first: It has been almost 15 years because the Padres memorably dropped the 2010 regular-season finale in San Francisco, lacking out on a shot on the NL West title. They haven’t entered a day of video games within the second half with first place on the road since. They’ll achieve this on Tuesday.

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