Padres' September Schedule Includes a Tremendous Favor

Maren Angus-Coombs | Sep 4, 2024

Kim Klement Neitzel-USA TODAY Sports

The San Diego Padres are holding on tightly to the National League's top Wild Card spot entering Tuesday night and they look ahead to the rest of their season, there is a favorable detail that could help secure their postseason berth.

San Diego does not have another game outside of the Pacific Time Zone and only has one flight remaining that is longer 2 hours, 15 minutes.

The Padres finished a run of 18 games in 18 days on Tuesday with a 4-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays. San Diego now has just 22 games in the season’s final 27 days.

In the second year of the balanced schedule, where every team plays everyone across both leagues, plus a season-opening trip to South Korea, the Padres are racking up more air miles than any other team in 2024.

But after crisscrossing at least two time zones on nine of their last 11 road trips over the past four months, all that's left are visits to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Phoenix.

“Abso-(expletive)-lutey,” Machado said when asked if that was a positive development. “It’s gonna be great staying out West, for sure. This new schedule, man, it has a lot of teams messed up, coming east. I think this is our sixth time coming out this way. Two different time changes in less than a week. On top of that, 18 in a row doesn’t make it any better. But yeah, for sure, our September schedule is a lot better. Couple off days in there, short flight, I think that’s definitely gonna help our bodies and our minds. Gonna be a good, nice little finish.”

Tuesday's win over Tampa Bay was crucial as the Padres enter the final stretch of the season.

“We play our game, man,” manager Mike Shildt said when postseason positioning was brought up afterward. “… We take care of our business, and that’s the way this game works.”

It doesn't matter how they win as long as they keep winning to keep up with the pace of the teams around them that also keep winning. On Tuesday, the Padres won with six hits and 10 walks.

“We didn’t have the most hits, didn’t score the most runs,” Jake Cronenworth said. “But the at-bats were outstanding.”

It was San Diego's 19th one-run victory of the season which makes last year's total of nine embarassing.

“It’s something that we’ve seen for so long with this team,” Xander Bogaerts said. “We just have that knack. … We find a way. It’s very special — that ability to find a way. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be pretty. At this time in September, it’s about getting the job done.”