The San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers are concluding their season series on Sunday with the National League West lead currently at one game.
The Padres are in sole possession of first place following their win on Saturday night. The Dodgers enter the finale at Petco Park having already clinched the NL West tiebreaker by virtue of winning the season series en route to sweeping the Padres last weekend.
Plenty has been made of the six head-to-head meetings over a span of 10 days, but inside the Dodgers clubhouse has come the steadfast mantra of viewing every opponent equally.
That held true heading into their pivotal matchup at Dodger Stadium and the stance was reiterated even after their impressive sweep.
Given the still-tight NL West race, manager Dave Roberts was again asked how the Dodgers balance playing the Padres with understanding they have more than 30 other games remaining on their schedule.
“I think for me, they’re all important. I really do believe that,” he said. “We’ve got the Reds after this series, and that’s an important series.
“I think it just comes down to playing good baseball. I didn’t fret too much from [Friday] night. (Yu) Darvish threw a heck of a ballgame, we had some balls hit hard, didn’t get a win, but for me, it was a clean baseball game. If we just continue to do that, we’ll win a lot more than we lose.”
Last year the Dodgers and Padres played for the final time during the last week of the regular season. The Dodgers took two of three, ending the series with back-to-back wins after dropping the series opener. That allowed them to clinch their 11th NL West title in the last 12 seasons.
Playoff opponents on Dodgers’ schedule
While the Dodgers and Padres won’t face each other again in the 2025 regular season after Sunday, they presumably will continue to be closely connected through a division race. A wrinkle to that is they have two of the easiest schedules remaining over the final five weeks.
In addition to the Cincinnati Reds, the only other teams in postseason contention who are on the Dodgers’ schedule to finish the season are the Philadelphia Phillies and Seattle Mariners.
The Padres also face the Reds, and have remaining series with the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers.
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