Padres News: Manny Machado Believes San Diego is Still in the Hunt for October Glory

The Friars are hanging on by a thread in the wild card race.

I'm sure you know by now that the San Diego Padres are in the middle of one of MLB's most disappointing seasons. 

While this won't be a deep dive into that, the outlook for the Friars doesn't look great as the calendar turns to mid-August. 

They were expected to be contenders in the National League -- and potentially get to the World Series -- behind a star laden roster that included Manny Machado, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis, Jr., Blake Snell, and Josh Hader among others. 

Things haven't gone according to that grand plan. 

The Padres chose to hang onto all of their stars through the trade deadline, and instead of continuing to turn their season around, have seen themselves freefall nearly out of playoff contention. 

San Diego is five and a half games out of the last NL wild card spot, but sit behind four teams in their pursuit for the last place in the playoffs. 

After a 2-7 spell over their last nine games, their chances for October look realistically bleak. 

But Padres third baseman Manny Machado still sees hope for San Diego to reach the postseason. 

“We’re still right there,” Machado said. “We haven’t been playing the way we’re capable of playing. I’m going to keep repeating that as much as we can, because it’s the truth. There’s no hiding that. But as bad as we’ve been playing, we’re still in the hunt. One good streak, whether it starts tomorrow, whether it starts in September, whether it starts the last two weeks of the season, we’ve just got to keep fighting.” 

via Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune

Yes, the Friars need to put together just one good streak as Machado says to find themselves truly in the thick of the playoff race. But for a team whose hallmark has been inconsistency throughout this disappointing season, pulling that off will be difficult.