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Padres finish regular season in loss to Diamondbacks, await first-round playoff opponent

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on

Published in Baseball

PHOENIX — Now the San Diego Padres wait.

At some point, probably late Monday night, a plane carrying the Mets or Braves will arrive in San Diego. Then, early Tuesday evening, the Padres will begin their wild-card series against whichever team that is.

These matters are generally decided by now.

But an 11-2 Diamondbacks victory over the Padres on Sunday sent the Major League Baseball regular season into overtime and left the Padres in limbo.

The Padres will pay attention to Monday’s doubleheader between the Mets and Braves. They would love to avoid facing Braves left-hander Chris Sale. They remember that the Mets have presented some matchup challenges this season.

But, really, their level of interest was summed thusly by Jurickson Profar:

“Not really,” he said. “As a team, we need to do what we’ve been doing. It doesn’t matter who we play. … We have a team. And we know if we do what we have to do, we will be in a pretty good spot against any team.”

An intentional focus on themselves has been among the pillars of their approach this season.

“We’ll be ready on Tuesday, and we’ll be prepared and eager and hungry to go compete,” manager Mike Shildt said. “… We’ll work out, and whenever the final out gets tallied and they tell us who we’re playing, we’ll get ready to compete.”

What the Padres know is that they are in the playoffs. They will be at home (or perhaps already at Petco Park) when they find out whether it is the Braves or Mets coming to town.

Whoever it is, Games 1 and 2 are scheduled to start at 5:38 p.m. PT on Monday and Tuesday. If it is necessary, Game 3 would begin at 4:08 p.m. PT Wednesday. Games 1 and 3 are slated to be televised on ESPN. Game 2 is on ESPN2.

The Diamondbacks are not headed to San Diego. They might not be headed anywhere.

They may have only gotten a stay on Sunday by finishing with an 89-73 record while the Braves lost to the Royals and the Mets beat the Brewers to create a virtual three-way tie for the final two National League playoff spots.

 

The Braves and Mets, who are both 88-72, had the final two games of their series last week postponed by rain. Now, depending on the outcomes Monday, one or both will leave Atlanta headed for a playoff series.

The Diamondbacks need one of those teams to win twice, because they lost the season series to both and would be eliminated if the Braves and Mets reach 89 wins.

With at least a split Monday, the Braves will lock up the No. 5 seed by virtue of having won the season series. The Mets need to sweep to be the fifth seed. The No. 5 seed plays the fourth-seeded Padres. The No. 6 seed will board a flight to Milwaukee to play the third-seeded Brewers.

The Padres lost five of seven against the Mets and won four of seven against the Braves this season.

They won seven of their 13 meetings with the Diamondbacks.

While the players on the field certainly tried to win Sunday’s game, there just weren’t a lot of the ones who would have been there if the result mattered to the Padres.

Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado and Profar all sat out Sunday as the Padres rested their regulars for a second straight day after earning hosting duties in the wild-card series on Friday. Luis Arraez was pulled in the sixth inning after getting his 200th hit of the season and locking up the National League batting title.

A day after the Padres scored five runs in the ninth inning to beat the Diamondbacks 5-0, they were up 1-0 through three innings on Sunday.

The Diamondbacks dropped six runs on Martín Pérez in the fourth inning and added a run in the fifth, sixth and seventh and two in the eighth inning against Matt Waldron.

Waldron had been called up to cover the bulk of the game, same as Randy Vásquez was recalled to start Saturday. Those moves spoke to the main aim of the weekend being to get rest for those playing in the postseason.

“Mission accomplished,” Shildt said. “… The mission to get ready for Tuesday was accomplished, in making sure guys stayed sharp enough to get their at-bats but kept guys off their feet. And being able to rest our bullpen. They’ve carried the mail quite a bit. So we’re in a good spot to move forward for Tuesday.”

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©2024 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

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