The San Diego Padres were not considered to be a contender this year by many people – even just a few days ago; however, after winning two games in a row against the San Francisco Giants the view of many have changed for the Padres.

Saturday night, the Padres defeated the Giants 4-2. Now, going into Sunday’s game against the Giants, which will be the final game of their three-game series, which should be the end of the regular MLB season, the Padres are sitting at 90-71 with the Giants sitting at 91-70, which means that the Giants are a single game ahead of the Padres in the National League West division chase. In addition, the Padres are tied with the Atlanta Braves for the lead in the National League Wild Card race due to the Braves losing against the Philadelphia Phillies Saturday night.

Looking at this a bit closer – what does it truly mean for the teams?

If both the Braves and the Giants win their final game on Sunday, the Giants will secure their NL West division title while the Braves secure their Wild Card lead, which would leave the Padres on the bench.

Now, if both the Padres and the Braves lose then the Padres would be required to travel to Atlanta on Monday to play in a playoff game to determine the winner of the Wild Card.

But, get this – if the Padres and the Braves win their final game on Sunday, all three teams – the San Diego Padres, the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants – plus the Cincinnati Reds, will finish the season with a 91-70 record. This means that the Giants and Padres would play a game in San Diego on Monday to determine the tiebreaker. This would ultimately determine the NL West division winner. The team that loses this playoff game would then travel to Atlanta the following night in order to determine the Wild Card champion.

We could go deeper in that if a team of the NL West wins that game Tuesday, provided that it makes it that far, the team would play the Phillies the following day to determine the division champ. Should the Braves win on Tuesday, they would have a day of rest preceding the start of their first game against the winner of the National League West.

Since the Cincinnati Reds, also 90-71, have already clinched their division title for the National League Central, they are simply sitting back and watching – waiting until their first playoff game later next week against the NL West Champion or the Phillies.

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