For The First Time In Franchise History, The Padres Beat A Historically Great Team In The Playoffs

Denis Poroy. Getty Images.

It seems like a lot of people were wrong about the Padres. Chris Castellani was. I know I was wrong too. I thought they had no shot getting past the Dodgers and even tweeted this Saturday night when they had a 2-1 series lead against the Dodgers.

The thing is, we should have been wrong about the Padres. The Dodgers came into the series as one of the greatest regular season teams in many years. They won 111 games (more than any Dodgers team ever and that counts Brooklyn as well as Los Angeles) and led the NL in both runs scored and ERA.  The Dodgers went 57-24 at home and 54-27 on the road and even went 14-5 against the Padres this year. I had them right there with the 1998 Yankees as the most dominant teams I've seen. Instead, I now have them with the 2001 Mariners as the most disappointing.

The San Diego Padres have long been one of the worst franchises in baseball. They were an expansion team in 1969 and it took them ten seasons to have a winning season and 16 seasons to make the playoffs. The 1984 Padres were not especially great but reaped the rewards of playing in a very weak NL West and won the division by 12 games. The only won 92 games but were on the only team in the division with a winning record.

The best players on the Padres were 24 year old outfielders in their first full seasons. Tony Gwynn led the National League in hits and Kevin McReynolds tied for the team lead in home runs with 20 and played strong defense. They also had future Hall of Famer Goose Goosage closing games. They faced the Cubs in the NLCS which was a best-of-five game series back then. The Cubs said if they won, they would finally put lights at Wrigley Field for the World Series.

The Cubs did win the first two games which were both at Wrigley but the Padres swept the next three in San Diego. The Cubs that year weren't particularly great either but the Padres World Series opponent were. The 1984 Detroit Tigers started the season 35-5 and in my opinion were the 2nd most talented team of the 1980's (behind the 1986 Mets).The Tigers had a ton of talent for a long time with players like Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Jack Morris, Lance Parrish and Kirk Gibson but this was the season they were able to put all the pieces together. The 104 win Tigers also led the league in runs and ERA just like the 2022 Dodgers.

Unlike the 2022 Dodgers, the 1984 Tigers were just as dominant in the playoffs and beat the Padres in five games. It was a really tough break for the Padres that the one year they make a World Series, they have to play one of the two greatest teams of that decade. What makes it even tougher was the same thing happened again the next time they made the World Series.

The 1998 Yankees are the best team I've ever seen. They didn't have the Cy Young or MVP winner but just had really good players at every position. It's no surprise when Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera are having great seasons but when Hideki Irabu is going 13-7 and Shane Spencer is slugging .910, good things are happening. Like the 2022 Dodgers and the 1984 Tigers, they also led the league in runs scored and ERA.

The best players on these Padres were Tony Gwynn, who was now a 38 year old outfielder in his last full season along with 50 home run hitter Greg Vaughn and maybe the best pitcher in baseball at the time in Kevin Brown. I believe the 1998 Padres were the best team in franchise history. They were better than the 1984 version and a good enough team. They probably had no business beating the 1998 Braves, who you could argue were a historically great team that the Padres have beaten but I disagree. They did have an all-time pitching rotation but that was the year Mark Wohlers really melted down and they had a shaky bullpen at times that year. Outside of Gerald Williams, they didn't have a great bench either. It was a great team and in 1998, I never expected the Padres to get past the Braves but it's tough to say a team is historically great when there is a better team playing in the same season.

The World Series was a Yankees sweep. The Padres had a first game lead but that was over in the 7th inning when Tino Martinez hit a grand slam off of Mark Langston. The Padres have made the playoffs four other times: 1996, 2005, 2006 and 2020 but each time were knocked out in the NLDS. They are a franchise with a .464 winning percentage. 

Now they find themselves in the NLCS for the first time since facing Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine in 1998. They are finally going up against a team in the Phillies that had less wins then they did this season. At this point, the Padres can't be counted out. They've survived the Fernando Tatis distraction and have beaten two 100-win teams including one of them being an all-time great regular season team. They've beaten the favorites but can they beat the underdog?