One of the very strange things about the Padres putting together their best winning streak of the year in the last two weeks of the season is they're nowhere near being at full strength.
Neither Yu Darvish nor Joe Musgrove is available to pitch. Jake Cronenworth and Gary Sanchez are both out with broken arms after getting hit by pitches. Manny Machado's elbow injury will require off-season surgery so he can only DH. Ha-Seong Kim has missed several games with an abdominal illness.
And yet, there they were taking a 7-game winning streak into their final home series of the season against St. Louis. Oh, and Machado? Apparently he doesn't need two working elbows to hit baseballs very, very hard. Manny launched a pair of home runs, both giving the Padres the lead, in a 4-2 win over the Cardinals that kept San Diego's miniscule postseason chance alive for another day.
Rookie knuckleballer Matt Waldron, who's filling in for one of the injured aces, has certainly earned a chance to compete for a spot in the starting rotation during next year's Spring Training. Waldron turned in the best outing of his career, striking out a career-high nine hitters over 5.2 innings. The only run he allowed came on a Masyn Winn solo homer that tied the game 1-1 in the 6th inning. Waldron didn't get the win but he did his job.
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So did Machado. His first homer came in the bottom half, a solo blast off Dakota Hudson that gave the Friars a 2-1 lead. St. Louis tied it in the 8th inning thanks to a Jordan Walker RBI triple off Luis Garcia. Once again the Padres did what they've finally figured out how to do: answer immediately and decisively.
Juan Soto ripped a double to right, setting the table for Manny, who jumped on a Matthew Liberatore offering and lofted it into the left field seats for his 4th hit of the night. Robert Suarez handled a scoreless 9th inning to lock down an 8th straight Padres win. As nice as that was, they got a lot of help from around the league.
While the Cubs won to keep San Diego 4.0 games out of the final National League Wild Card spot, the Marlins, Reds, and Diamondbacks (all teams ahead of the Friars in the standings) all lost. So, with eight games to play ... none against a team with a winning record ... the Padres still just might have a chance to make a miracle happen.
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