San Diego Padres Playoff Scenarios: Can They Still Miss the Postseason?

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Can the San Diego Padres still miss the postseason? Here’s a look at their playoff scenarios and what they need to clinch.

The San Diego Padres can clinch a playoff spot Thursday night in Los Angeles, needing just a win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, after the Arizona Diamondbacks held off a furious Colorado Rockies comeback to win 12-8 in Denver.

An Arizona loss would have let the Padres clinch a playoff berth before even taking the field today. Now, San Diego must beat the Dodgers to celebrate tonight.

A magic number of 1 sits on the board at Petco Park, but nothing is official yet, and the Chicago Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies are lurking one game back with tiebreakers already in their pocket.

San Diego (88-70) enters the night having won 14 of its last 16 games, a surge that complicated the already chaotic National League wild-card race into something closer to a formality. Manny Machado‘s two-run homer fueled Wednesday’s 5-1 win over the Dodgers, and the Padres now control their own destiny with four games to play.

San Diego Padres’ Path to Clinching Thursday

Nick Pivetta gets the ball Thursday for San Diego opposite the Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow, and if they happen to fall tonight, the Padres still control their own fate. A single win in this weekend’s season-ending, three-game set against Arizona at Petco Park would seal a berth regardless of what happens elsewhere.

That home crowd would be no small factor. San Diego ranks third in Major League Baseball in average home attendance and has already sold out 62 of 78 dates this season, a level of buzz Machado clearly feeds off.

“It’s going to be sick. I’m getting goosebumps just thinking about it,” Machado said, as quoted by Times of San Diego‘s Barry M. Bloom.

Padres’ Two-Year Streak and Possible Cubs Rematch

San Diego reached October in both 2024 and 2025, beating Atlanta in the 2024 wild-card series before falling to the Dodgers in the NLDS, then losing to the Cubs in last year’s wild-card round. The franchise has never made three straight postseasons, and a letdown against Arizona this weekend would end that streak before it started.

The bigger prize, the top wild-card seed and home-field advantage in the wild-card series, requires more work. San Diego owns a tiebreaker over Atlanta but has lost season-series tiebreakers to both Chicago and Philadelphia, pushing its magic number for that seeding to 4, according to NBC Sports’ Eric Samulski.

If the bracket held today, the Cubs would visit Petco Park as the No. 5 seed, opening a best-of-three set scheduled to begin Sept. 29 and run through Oct. 1, while the Phillies would travel to face the Braves.

Win the series, and the reward is a date with the 99-win Milwaukee Brewers in the NLDS.

Arizona, 2 1/2 games back with three to play, would need to sweep the Padres to have a chance.