The instant analysis of the first half of the 2026 season for the Padres was best summed up by Mason Miller, the closer who’s by far the best and most consistent member of the team.
“It’s not where we wanted to or expected to be, but we’re not completely underwater,” Miller said Monday night as he closed out his club’s 1-0 victory over the Braves at Petco Park. “We still have a chance to play a little better and define what this year’s going to be.”
Miller, the Padres’ likely only National League All-Star, has been stellar. He’s been perfect with 21 saves in 21 opportunities, a 1-1 record and 0.84 ERA, three earned runs, 14 hits, 13 walks and 63 strikeouts in 32 innings over 31 appearances. That’s two strikeouts an inning. Opponents are batting .128 against him.
He also picked up the 7-6 win Tuesday after Manny Machado walkoff single in the 10th inning. He’s an obvious choice for the big game honoring the 250th U.S. birthday in Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park on July 14.
Miller and the rest of his bullpen mates – primarily Jason Adam and Adrian Morejon – are the reason the Padres are 41-37 and still in the NL Wild Card race approaching the 82-game mark this weekend. The first-place Dodgers are returning to Petco for the final time this season.
Miller has been a factor in 55% of the Padres wins.
“Ace has obviously been special,” Adam said referring to Miller. “No one better to hand the ball to hold it down. You can count on him every night.”
Not so much other members of the team. On May 18, the Padres defeated the Dodgers at home and went into first place by half a game in the NL West with a 1-0 win that was a carbon copy of Monday night.
Back then, the Padres had four hits and Miguel Andujar hit a home run. Michael King pitched seven innings of four-hit, nine-strikeout ball. Adam and Miller finished up.
Monday against the Braves, the Padres had four hits and Machado hit a homer. King pitched seven innings of six-hit, five-strikeout ball. Morejon and Miller finished up.
Same score, same results. In the interim, the Padres went 10-19 and fell nine games behind the Dodgers, who have won 51 –10 more games than the Friars. King hadn’t had a win against four losses until Monday.
The club’s severe downturn has been based on the worst offense in the Major Leagues, inconsistent pitching from a starting rotation that’s been riddled with injuries and star players who are not matching their exorbitant salaries with statistics consistent with what’s on the back of their baseball cards.
Through Monday, the Padres are dead last with a .219 batting average, a .363 slugging percentage and a .656 OPS. They’ve scored 297 runs, one ahead of the Red Sox, who are just behind them at the league’s bottom.
Pitching wise, they have allowed 306 runs, ranking sixth in the league. But that -9 run differential doesn’t leave too much of a margin for error. Their starters are 22nd in the league with a 4.54 ERA. Team is scoring 3.86 runs per game.
“There’ve been a lot of those battled-tested wins,” Adam said. “And that should prove fateful for us down the stretch. We’re going to benefit from having these games come playoff time when there are few blowouts and every game’s a grind.”
That’s a positive way to look at it. Right now, the Padres are tied with the Cubs and Nationals for the last of three Wild Card spots, with four other teams within three games. The first tie breaker is head-to-head action during the regular season. The Padres are currently 1-2 vs. both the Cubs and Nationals. The Padres are in Chicago at the end of the month and host Washington early in September.
The old adage that a win in April is as important as a win in September couldn’t be more accurate in this playoff format.
The fact the Padres could only use Miller once from June 9 to June 20 tells a lot about the first half’s story. They also lost 11 of 13 from May 24 to June 17. That’s ground they’re never going to make up. They may not be underwater right now, as Miller so aptly said, but they’re certainly treading water.
“It’s been kind of a mixed bag,” Padres first-year manager Craig Stammen said. “We’ve hung in there. We’re right there in the hunt for playoffs. We’re really looking forward to the second half. I think we’re going to hit our stride and show who we really are.”
Or not. This might be who they really are: A team with a bloated payroll of $258.2 million, $14 million over the luxury tax threshold, that’s about to be sold to equity billionaire Jose Feliciano and his wife Kwanza Jones; the sale continues to wind its way through the MLB approval process.
If the Seidler family is still in control at the Aug. 3 trade deadline, it very well might tie the hands of veteran general manager A.J. Preller from buying or selling.
The Padres are hampered right now by Machado’s .185 batting average, with Jackson Merrill at .214 and Fernando Tatis with two home runs, among others. The squad has only hit 79 homers as a team, 21st in the league.
Machado, who leads the team with 14 homers and 42 RBIs, has shown some life in recent games. He was 5-for-11 with five RBIs, six runs scored and two game-winning homers in the club’s three games leading up to Tuesday, when he had the walkoff single.
While he won’t say he’s over the hump, he did say after smacking a homer and a double on Monday night he’s trying to “trust the process,” although he won’t divulge what that process is.
Tatis, who’s batting .284, said that for him, “every day is a hump.”
That is apt metaphor at the halfway mark for this club – every day is a hump, indeed.
