The Rockies handed the Padres three losses this weekend and now it looks like the National League Wild Card is going to come down to the wire. Six runs in a three games series isn’t going to cut it but despite the three losses, the Padres still control their own destiny with a razor thin 1/2 game lead over the Phillies for the Wild Card. More important, they’re one loss better so if they win out, the playoff spot is theirs.
The Padres do have to contend with playing on the road the rest of the way though. It’s three against the Giants then four against the Brewers. By that Brewers series, they should be out of it so I don’t know if that’ll change things or not. In the meantime, the Phillies have three against a tough Braves team and three against the Nationals while the Rockies, who are a game and a half back of the Padres (two losses), play the Dodgers and a tough Diamondbacks team.
The pitching matchup in this Giants series that really worries me is tomorrow, which has Matt Cain going up against Bret Tomko. Chris Young and Barry Zito I like and then Peavy throws Wednesday (does it really matter who’s throwing for the Giants). You wonder if Peavy gets the start on Sunday if they have to win on short rest.
Adrian Gonzalez has an outside shot of some nice milestones. If he can hit three homers this week, it’ll get him to 30 and he needs nine RBIs and eight runs. We’ll need his stick if we want to get into the playoffs so if he can manage any of those milestones, it just means good things for the Padres.
Unless Peavy gets the Sunday start, he’ll fall short of 20 wins although you’d think he’d still be the front runner for the Cy Young. In fact if he should walk away with the pitching triple crown if he can win Wednesday’s start. He already has a career high 233 strikeouts and with seven more, he’ll cross an impressive 240 line. Johan Santana is right behind him for the major league lead with 231.
Regardless, I’ll be watching these last few games very, very closely. Of course once you get into the playoffs, anything can happen and I like our chances better this year then in any other.