There’s no shortage of reasons why Padres-Dodgers games sizzle.
Each team boasts multiple players with serious Hall of Fame potential. By now, each fan base knows the other team’s best players. Capacity crowds amp up the atmosphere. The Dodgers and small-market Padres rank first and second in MLB home attendance, making a case for Southern California as the current center of the baseball universe.
The idea that the World Series trophy is relevant to these regular-season games may be a slight reach, but let’s go with it anyway.
October implications — and a potential rematch between the National League West rivals — adds weight to the seven San Diego-L.A. contests this month, starting with Monday night’s 8-7, 10-inning Dodgers victory at Petco Park.
Win your division, and the odds of winning the World Series improve.
I’m tempted to clam up right there because earning a wild-card berth can also lead to winning a World Series — see Bruce Bochy with the 2012 Giants and 2023 Rangers.
Let’s attach a disclaimer to the truth that the divisional title tends to confer a postseason perk on the winner.
One, there’s no reward beyond first-round homefield advantage to a division titlist that wins fewer games than two other National League teams. So for an NL West team to earn not just the divisional title but a first-round playoff bye, it’ll take winning more games than another NL divisional champ. This year, that may be extra tough.
Since MLB added a second wild card in 2012, 10 of the 13 World Series champions (76.9%) have been division winners.
Three of four champs being division winners seems significant. It rubs some shine off the partial truth about “just getting in.” Getting in as a division titlist, it appears, is an advantage.
But that stat only got us started. Take the current format, which goes back only three years.
The wild-card “series” has grown from one game to best-of-three. Now, the two division champions with the best regular-season records receive first-round byes rather than all three division champions.
The results: Two of the last three World Series winners have been division winners. Earning themselves first-round byes, the 2022 Astros and 2024 Dodgers each had a top-two record in their league.
The advantage is there. Teams with first-round byes need to win 11 postseason games to hoist the World Series trophy, while everybody else needs 13. The Padres’ franchise record for postseason wins in a season is seven, coming from the Bochy-led 1998 club. That’s just one more than Bob Melvin’s 2022 team won, beating the Mets and Dodgers before falling to the Phillies in the NLCS.
Entering Monday, the Mets and Cubs led the NL in winning percentage. They would receive first-round byes if the season ended today.
To catch either team, the Padres may need extra oxygen tanks.
They’d need to not only fend off the Giants and overcome the gazillion-dollar Dodgers but win more games than either the gazillion-dollar Mets or the best Cubs team in years.
My tangential October talk here in June, before summer has shown up, is one good reason former Padre (and Dodger) Greg Maddux coined the term “media mumbo-jumbo.”
It’s also an example of why ballplayers are better off concerning themselves only with the game at hand.
Against the Dodgers, the Padres should have no trouble keeping it simple. They know that beating the Dodgers is both extra fun and extra helpful to winning a playoff berth. And they know that even if L.A. this year were to end up winning its 12th NL West title in 13 seasons, beating them now will harm their chances of eclipsing both the Cubs and Mets.
For the rest of us, it’s even more simple. Just enjoy the show.
