The Padres are on the verge of clinching a playoff spot and a berth in the National League’s best-of-three Wild Card round, wherever it may open, beginning Tuesday. The location possibilities depend on how the dominoes fall when the regular season ends Sunday.
Any combination of a Padres win or a D-backs loss Thursday will clinch a playoff spot for San Diego. The D-backs play the Rockies in an afternoon game in Denver first before the Friars face the Dodgers in Los Angeles at night.
The Padres could open the playoffs in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia or even against the Cubs or Phillies at Petco Park, which would be the preferred destination. The Padres are 49-29 at home this season and are third in Major League Baseball average attendance at 41,197. They’ve had 62 sellouts in 78 games.
Their total attendance of 3.2 million is second behind the Dodgers, who play in the much bigger Dodger Stadium, which has a 56,000 capacity compared to Petco’s 42,000.
The electricity and energy at Petco is already off the charts. But the playoffs?
“It’s going to be sick,” said Padres star third baseman Manny Machado, who hit a two-run homer in Wednesday night’s 5-1 Padres’ victory over the Dodgers. “I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it.”
Barring a massive collapse that would dwarf anything in Padres history, it’s not too early to talk about their starting pitching for the playoffs. The Padres finish at home with three games against the D-backs this weekend, beginning Friday.
Manager Craig Stammen wants rotation anchor Michael King to open the playoffs “no matter where it’s at,” he said this week. King was repositioned in the rotation to pitch Monday at Dodger Stadium where the Dodgers pummeled him 7-0.
The Padres are 88-70, a game ahead of the Cubs and Phillies, and lead Arizona by four games with four left to play. The Phillies and Cubs hold the head-to-head tiebreaker vs. the Padres, so they need to finish at least that game ahead of them to claim home field advantage. The D-backs still have a heartbeat, trailing the Cubs and Phillies by three games.
Stammen said he will not pitch King on Sunday if the playoffs are clinched, but home field is still on the line. King had a string of eight quality starts in row dating back to Aug. 8 shattered Monday night when he lost the plate with two out and no one on in the second inning and surrendered four runs.
Stammen remains undaunted.
“It sets up our best pitcher in a win-or-go-home scenario,” Stammen said about King. “And then if he doesn’t pitch that game, he would most likely pitch Game 1.”
That leaves Stammen to choose among Nick Pivetta, Walker Buehler, Casey Mize and Robbie Ray to pitch the second and possible third games of the Wild Card Series on Wednesday and Thursday. The opening of a best-of-five NL Division Series is set for Saturday should the Padres win.
Considering the unexpected season he’s had for the Padres and his vast successful postseason experience, Buehler should not be overlooked.
Buehler came into camp as a non-roster invitee, pitched his way onto the team and signed a one-year, $1.5 million contract. With Pivetta out due to a sore right elbow and Joe Musgrove’s difficult recovery from Tommy John surgery, Buehler became the constant No. 2 on the staff behind King.
Buehler was the anchor there until Ray and Mize’s acquisition at the trade deadline and Pivetta’s recent return.
The Padres were so short of starting pitching they wouldn’t have survived without him. He’s made every one of his 31 starts, his most since a career-high 33 for the 2021 Dodgers.
“He’s had a tremendous year,” Stammen said about Buehler. “He’s really stepped it up in the second half when we’ve needed it. He’s kind of come into his groove with his new way of pitching, with all his different pitches and command. But the biggest thing Walker has is he believes in himself. And when you believe in yourself you’re capable of doing anything.”
Buehler brings those intangibles, which analytics don’t measure, despite two Tommy John surgeries on his right elbow, right shoulder bursitis and a right hip inflammation that sidelined a once-promising career.
Two years ago in his waning days with the Dodgers, Buehler came up big in their World Series victory over the Yankees. He won another title with the Dodgers over the Rays in 2020, starting and winning Game 3.
In 2024, Buehler started Game 4 at Yankee Stadium and pitched five innings of no-run, two-hit ball in a 4-2 win that gave the Dodgers a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. Buehler had fallen so far out of favor, he had only started 16 games with a 5.38 ERA all that regular season.
Then, the next night after the Dodgers came back from a 5-0 deficit and were out of pitching, Buehler volunteered to appear in relief and locked down a 7-6 win with a perfect ninth, striking out Anthony Volpe and Alex Verdugo to end the World Series.
Asked recently what he remembered most about those games, Buehler said: “We won. That was all that mattered!”
And that’s the way his seven-year Dodger tenure ended. He’d rather forget last year’s split between the Red Sox and Phillies when he struggled with ineffectiveness, a 10-7 record and a 4.93 ERA in 24 starts, 22 of them for Boston before his Aug. 29 release.
Talk about low of lows: Buehler made a May 6, 2025 start against the Yankees in New York where he was yanked after allowing seven runs on seven hits in two innings.
“Yeah, it didn’t go so good,” he said. “Go back and look at the video.”
Roll ahead to this past Sept. 4 when Buehler matched up again against the Yankees, this time at Petco. In that game, Buehler allowed a run on three hits with six strikeouts in five innings of his club’s 3-2 win. It started a 14-3 streak, putting the Padres smack into the playoffs.
“I’ve pitched against the Yankees in some really big games,” he said after his latest game against them. “I woke up today feeling I didn’t have to be at 110%. That’s what I wanted to feel like coming back from the surgery and the struggles I’ve had. I’m very fortunate to be in a place where these guys have helped me and put me in a spot where I can do that.”
For the Padres and Buehler, bigger games are to come.
