Padres plot to end D-backs' chances, enhance own seeding

The San Diego Padres would love to finish the regular season with a bang and stay home to open the National League playoffs. The Arizona Diamondbacks would just love a chance to play in the postseason.

Neither team has a good chance to do what it really wants, but for one to succeed, it would have to go through the other in the final series of the regular season, which starts Friday night in San Diego.

The Padres (87-72) sit two games behind the Chicago Cubs (89-70) for home-field advantage in the wild-card round with three games to go. The teams are assured of facing off in a best-of-three series that will start on Tuesday.

Chicago threw San Diego a lifeline by losing 8-5 to the New York Mets on Thursday, but the Cubs would have to lose at least twice this weekend when they host the St. Louis Cardinals for San Diego to have any chance of staying home for the wild-card series.

Meanwhile, Arizona (80-79) lost 8-0 to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday, falling two behind the Mets (82-77) for the final NL wild card with three games left. The Diamondbacks also trail the Cincinnati Reds (81-78) by one game.

Arizona owns the tiebreaker against New York, but the Reds have the tiebreaker edge over the Diamondbacks.

"The Padres are a good team," Arizona manager Torey Lovullo said after the Thursday loss. "I could sit here and tell you we've got to go out and sweep them. We do. That's the mindset. We've got to win every game we can. We've got three left."

In the first one, the Diamondbacks will go with Zac Gallen (13-14, 4.70 ERA). He is coming off a 4-3 win on Saturday night against the Philadelphia Phillies that saw him fan nine over seven innings, allowing four hits, three runs and two walks. He is 4-1 with a 2.56 ERA in his past five outings.

Gallen is 5-3 with a 3.12 ERA in 14 career starts against San Diego, including 1-0 with a 2.92 ERA in two starts this year.

The Diamondbacks won seven out of nine games before a 5-4, 11-inning loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday and then the Thursday setback moved them close to elimination.

"We backed ourselves into a corner," Lovullo said. "We know where we stand."

So do the Padres, who had a chance to make things tougher on the Cubs but fell 3-1 to the Milwaukee Brewers in the series finale on Wednesday. In addition to the defeat, San Diego experienced a loss when outfielder Ramon Laureano, a shrewd addition from Baltimore at the trading deadline, sustained a fractured right index finger in the second inning.

Manager Mike Shildt confirmed after the game that Laureano is out through the wild-card round, at minimum. The team fears Laureano, who jacked 24 homers between the Orioles and Padres this year, might not return until 2026.

"It's one of those seasons we have seldom had our entire lineup in one piece," Shildt said. "So we're used to it, and we figured it out, and we've gotten this far, and we're going to go much further with it."

Yu Darvish (4-5, 5.51 ERA) will make the start for San Diego on Friday. The right-hander is coming off a no-decision against the Chicago White Sox on Saturday, when he permitted six hits and two runs in 4 2/3 innings with no walks and four strikeouts.

Darvish is 9-5 with a 3.78 ERA in 21 career starts against the Diamondbacks. In two outings vs. Arizona this year, he is 0-1 with a 5.87 ERA.

The teams have split 10 meetings this season, including a 2-2 series split at San Diego in July.

--Field Level Media