Riding high into the Dodgers series

The Padres have won 7 of their last 9 games and three consecutive series. Can they carry that momentum into a series against the Dodgers?

The San Diego Padres haven’t just won 7 of their last 9 games, they’ve also won three series in a row as they welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers to Petco Park tomorrow.

While they’ve been doing that, the Philadelphia Phillies have won just 3 of their last 10 games, putting the Padres in the driver’s seat for the 5th seed in the National League heading into the playoffs.

This may not be completely accurate, because the season is long and it’s easy to forget things like this, but I’m almost positive this is the best baseball the Padres have played all season.

Also, and this is a neat wrinkle that I thought had already gone out the window, but Yu Darvish and Manny Machado are starting to get buzz for the Cy Young and MVP Awards (Manny’s case is a bit more realistic than Yu’s but you probably shouldn’t put money on either).

To put it bluntly, things are riding really high for the Padres right now. Earlier in the season, even when things were going well, that would all come crashing down in a series against the Dodgers.

I don’t know how the Padres keep the Dodgers from bursting this momentum bubble. The obvious answer is that they beat the Dodgers in a series, but that is significantly easier said than done. Even harder than that might be picking up the pieces and getting hot again after a series loss, should one befall them.

Do I love seeing the Padres hit their stride? Yes. If I could’ve picked any time of the year for them to put all of these pieces together, would I have picked mid-September? Yes again. Am I still terrified that the Dodgers are going to come in and ruin the party? I am.