Padres Rookie Likes Being 'Underdog' in NL West Race

Eva Geitheim | Apr 1, 2024

Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

The San Diego Padres are embracing their underdog status as the 2024 MLB regular season gets underway. The Padres are well aware that they are not favored to win the NL West, or even be one of the division's top contenders.

Heading into the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers are the clear favorites to win the division. The Dodgers have controlled the division over the last decade, winning ten of the last 11 division titles. After the Dodgers, the Arizona Diamondbacks are in the conversation after upsetting the Dodgers in the playoffs a season ago and advancing to the World Series. Even the San Francisco Giants have been discussed more favorably than the Padres, after snapping up reigning NL Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell in free agency, and pairing him with former Padres manager Bob Melvin.

Meanwhile, San Diego has fallen out of the picture after losing top players like Juan Soto and Josh Hader following a disappointing 2023 campaign.

This is no problem for the Padres, who would be happy surprising people this season. Rookie outfielder Jackson Merrill spoke on this mentality during the Padres opening home series against the Giants.

“There’s a lot of talk about the Dodgers and Giants offseason, the Diamondbacks offseason,” Merrill said, via Jeff Sanders of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “Nobody really talks about us. So we kind of like it that way. We kind of want to leave it that way. We’re going to play our game the whole year. And then when it’s time to actually talk about something, I think that’s what we’ll be talking about.”

So far, the Padres are off to a 3-3 start to the 2024 regular season. They have split both the Seoul Series versus the Dodgers and home series versus the Giants evenly. They'll next take on the St. Louis Cardinals in a three-game series starting Monday.