Padres News: Why Friars' Sunday Game Vs Nationals is Must-Win for Sake of Morale

They've been coming up short time and time again!

Padres fans happily look back on the 2022 season and remember how no matter what lineup was rolled out everyday or what injury news hit their timelines in the morning, they knew that the guys they had were going to go out there and battle. San Diego was able to do this and go on a hot streak at just the perfect time to sneak into the wild card.

However, when you look at the Padres' wild card standings as of right now, they are obviously out of the race and have been for some time. As of right now, they sit 6.5 games behind the final wild card spot in the NL which is the farthest they've been. Their main goal for the past month and a half has been to make it back to .500 but it seems like for every solid win they record, two nail-biters follow. Take their last two games for example... Friday ended with a 13-3 victory while Saturday ended with a 2-0 loss.

Juan Soto hit a little grounder that the catcher picked up and threw to 2nd base and somehow Tatís scored all the way home running through a stop sign. Absolutely electric speed 👀⚡️ pic.twitter.com/UJXyNk57FM

— Baseball King (@BasebaIlKing) June 18, 2023

Mackenzie Gore, a former Padres top pitching prospect who was sent away in last year's Juan Soto trade, will be taking the mound against the Friars on Sunday and he will have a heart full of vengeance as he looks to close out the series against his formal team. Obviously, the Padres will move on if they lose like they have been this whole year but I think it's safe to say that this game is one of their most 'must-win' matches that they've entered in 2023. 

For as inconsistent as the Padres have been, the Nationals have been a lot worse and that is expected. They rolled out a struggling pitching rotation on Saturday and San Diego still only came up with four hits and no runs. Fernando Tatis Jr, Manny Machado and Juan Soto mustered up three out of those four hits while Xander Bogaerts went 0-3 in his at-bats.

Nobody realizes how much pressure is on the squad right now as much as team manager Bob Melvin does. He touched on some of their goals to reach before All-Star break.

Juan Soto - San Diego Padres (12)
pic.twitter.com/3Eeirr2GBq

— MLB HR Videos (@MLBHRVideos) June 20, 2023

But yeah, I mean, at this point in time, leading up to the break, we have five series," said Melvin. "We’d like to try to win them all — try to win 10 games or whatever and get a couple games over .500. So every time we have a chance to win a series, it feels like a big game because of where we are.”

(Via The San Diego-Union Tribune)

First things first, let's close out this series against Washington.