SAN DIEGO — The playoffs begin in four weeks. There’s still time for the Padres to make a serious run at the National League West. There’s time for them to make a push for a first-round bye. There’s time to ensure that, at the very least, home games will be played at Petco Park this postseason.
But that time isn’t infinite. And there’s less of it with every missed opportunity.
The Padres lost, 6-2, to the Orioles on Tuesday night — the fourth time in five days they’ve lost a game to an opponent outside the playoff picture. Nine days ago, they finished their series against the rival Dodgers tied atop the division. Since then, San Diego has lost three straight series and has fallen 2 1/2 games behind L.A. in the NL West.
“It’s a stretch,” said manager Mike Shildt, “that is very uncharacteristic of this team.”
Shildt wasn’t merely referencing the results. The Padres played crisp, clean baseball for most of the season’s first five months. They haven’t lately. On Tuesday, starter Yu Darvish walked two batters and hit two more. A Jake Cronenworth error later proved costly. That’s how it’s gone lately.
“I’ve felt through the year like we’ve had some bad stretches of baseball where we’ve managed to win games,” said center fielder Jackson Merrill, who returned to the starting lineup after missing two weeks with a left ankle sprain. “We’d go through stretches when we’re not raking, we’re not the prettiest, but we’d just win games, grind it out. We’re going to find it again.”
It would be an overstatement to call this an inflection point. The Padres remain squarely in the playoff picture with a roster that figures to conform very well to the rigors of postseason baseball. But there’s a measure of adversity that San Diego is facing at present — especially considering the events of the past few days.
On Friday, Xander Bogaerts landed on the injured list with a fracture in his left foot, and based on his four- to six-week timeline, it’s unclear whether he’ll be back in time for the playoffs. Then, on Monday, All-Star setup reliever Jason Adam ruptured the tendon in his left quadriceps. A day later, the worst was confirmed: Adam is scheduled to undergo surgery on Wednesday and miss the remainder of the season.
“We’ve got to try to win games without them,” Merrill said. “It hurts. But every team has injured players. Every team. There’s not a single team that’s fully healthy. We’ve just got to keep grinding.”
The reality is, these two particular injuries aren’t debilitating. Adam has been excellent this season, but the Padres’ bullpen is the deepest in baseball — and can now call on that depth.
Bogaerts, meanwhile, is a big loss, considering the lack of other options at short. But if he’s back for the postseason, the Padres can get by for a few weeks with makeshift solutions at the position.
“We’ve got good players in this clubhouse, even with the injuries,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “Flip the page, come in tomorrow, compete, and then we should be fine.”
Darvish struggled on Tuesday, working four-plus laborious innings in which he allowed four runs (three earned) while striking out six. He has made 11 starts since his season got underway late due to right elbow inflammation. His ERA sits at 5.75 — raising serious questions about his viability for starts in October.
Of course, there’s plenty riding on these September starts, too. After Tuesday’s loss, the Padres are now:
Not one of those deficits is insurmountable. The Padres have the Majors’ easiest remaining strength of schedule. Their remaining opponents have a combined .433 winning percentage this season. Then again, the past week has proven that a theoretically soft schedule doesn’t guarantee anything.
“We need to get better,” said Luis Arraez, whose two-run homer provided the entirety of the Padres’ offense on Tuesday. “We need to continue to play hard, and we need to enjoy it. We have a great team. We have a lot of games to come. Tomorrow’s another day.”
