Is it time to panic?

The San Diego Padres are still lagging behind in the NL West and a few others are charging hard in the Wild Card race.

After last night’s 7-5 loss to the Washington Nationals, the San Diego Padres have played 87 games so far this season. They are 50-37 in those games, putting them well above .500.

In 2020 didn’t happen, this would be the best season for the Padres in recent memory. However, the Padres are in 3rd place in the NL West and their Wild Card spot isn’t exactly locked up.

Is it time to start worrying about if the Padres are going to make the playoffs this year?

NL West race

The Padres had a chance to pick up a game on both the Dodgers and Giants last night, which is what made their loss to the Nats really sting.

When you look at the NL West, it really does appear like it’s a two-team race and the Padres’ focus should be on the Wild Card. That’s depressing for a team that’s this good!

San Diego is 4.0 games back from the Dodgers and 4.5 games back from the Giants. Depending on how much you like to gamble, that might actually be good enough.

In the final month of the season, the Padres play the Giants 10 times. Seven of those games are at Petco Park. Going 7-3 in those games would mean making up 4 whole games on the Giants.

In the final six weeks of the season, the Padres play the Dodgers 9 times. Six of those games are at Petco Park. Going 6-3 in those games would mean making up 3 whole games on the Dodgers.

We’ve seen what the Padres can do when they play their best against their most important competition, so the goal between now and the end of August is to stay within striking distance so that those 19 games can still mean the difference between being in or out of the playoffs.

The playoffs officially start in October in MLB, but it definitely feels like it will start about a month early for the Padres.

Wild Card race

If the season ended right now, the San Diego Padres would be in the playoffs. They would play a single game playoff against the Los Angeles Dodgers to see who would get to play the San Francisco Giants in the Division Series.

While the Cincinnati Reds have won five in a row, they’re still a ways back from the Padres. To be specific, they are 4.5 games back from San Diego (the same distance the Padres are back from the Giants) and the two teams don’t play each other again this season.

The next closest team is the Cubs, who have lost ten straight games and are 7 games back from catching the Padres for the second Wild Card spot.

If you feel like the Padres face a difficult journey making the playoffs through the NL West, you should also feel that the team is in a really good position to snag one of the two NL Wild Card spots this season. 4.5 games is 4.5 games, after all.

The difference, and this one probably works in the favor of the Padres, is that the team’s they’re fighting position for in the NL West also get to play the Rockies and Diamondbacks a lot. The team they’re going against for the Wild Card probably have to face stiffer competition than most.

(Yes, I can hear you muttering from here about that not mattering if the Padres keep losing games to the Rockies and Diamondbacks.)

A good sign

The 2021 Padres have a Pythagorean record of 53-34. It’s okay if you don’t know what that means. It’s a fancy math problem that is attempts to predict a team’s record based off their run differential. It’s sometimes used to see if a manager has had a positive or negative impact on his team’s record (in this case, it’s about even).

The Padres’ +84 run differential in 87 games is exactly the same as their +84 run differential in 2020, although that was in just 60 games. Random, I know, but I felt like sharing. I like when numbers are exactly the same.

San Diego’s 2021 run differential is 5th best in all of baseball. It’s the 3rd best in the National League, topped by only….yup. The Giants and Dodgers.

So, while they are undoubtedly in the best division in all of baseball, there’s a really good argument to be made that the Padres are one of the five best teams in baseball and one of the three best teams in the NL. That should be enough to get them to the playoffs.

Their obvious talent plus their easier schedule in the 2nd half of the season is exactly why FanGraphs has the Padres at 93.1% odds to make the playoffs. It would likely take something catastrophic to throw them off course from making it into the postseason.

If the Padres have shown us anything this season, it’s that they play their best when they have the biggest spotlight on them. I have a lot of confidence in how they’ll perform once they get there. And now, looking at this, I feel good that they’ll get there.