Front Row Seat: Padres season ends, raises offseason questions

Section 1904 is a community-supported media company. If you like our content, considering either subscribing to support our work for as little as $5/month or dropping a tip in the jar.

Section 1904

San Diego Padres

‘Missed opportunity’: Padres’ season ends with Wild Card Series loss to Cubs - San Diego Union-Tribune
Over three days at Wrigley Field, there was all the tension and elation and devastation inherent in a series that ends with one team hugging and shouting and drenched in alcohol and leaves the other in stunned silence and facing an early winter.

“It hurts,” Xander Bogaerts said. “Especially the way we kind of ended the game right there. We gave ourselves a chance. It’s not fun. That is the only bad thing about sports. One gotta win and one gotta lose, and it sucks we’re on the losing side.”

Padres' sturdy bullpen never gets a lead to protect in playoff ouster - MLB.com
Another winner-take-all game on the road. Another unsatisfactory showing from the San Diego offense. Another postseason exit earlier than they ever anticipated.

The Padres are headed home after a 3-1 loss to the Cubs on Thursday in Game 3 of the National League Wild Card Series at Wrigley Field. After their Game 5 Division Series loss to the Dodgers a year ago, it’s the second consecutive year the Padres’ season has ended with disappointment in a winner-take-all game.

MLB playoffs 2025: Padres' Xander Bogaerts blasts 'terrible' missed ball-strike call in ninth inning of Game 3 loss - Yahoo Sports
After eight innings of getting shut down by the Chicago Cubs, the Padres got on the board in the ninth inning with a solo homer from Jackson Merrill. The next batter, Xander Bogaerts, worked the count full against reliever Brad Keller, whose payoff pitch was tracked as a ball.

Bogaerts certainly seemed to think it was a ball, as he started walking across home plate before umpire D.J. Reyburn punched him out. Bogaerts then had words for Reyburn and was briefly joined by Padres manager Mike Shildt before walking to the dugout.

Padres’ Yu Darvish can’t ‘wrap mind’ around future after shortest start of career - San Diego Union-Tribune
Darvish is owed another $46 million through 2028, but in the wake of a 3-1 loss to the Cubs that ended the Padres’ season, he was in no place mentally to even begin to digest what it’s going to take for him to pitch next season.

“I mean, we just got through — we just lost, our season just ended,” Darvish said through interpreter Shingo Horie. “That’s something I’ll go into the offseason and think about. I can’t really wrap my mind around that right now.”

Mason Miller and the Impossibility of True Unhittability - FanGraphs
Anytime Miller is on the mound, the general feeling among spectators is astonishment that anyone ever manages to put the ball in play. He just threw an immaculate inning. Since his debut in 2023, Miller has allowed just 0.55 hits per inning, the lowest rate among all 473 pitchers who have thrown at least 100 innings. And now, following a 2025 season in which his 45.2% whiff rate ranked second among all pitchers, Miller has ascended to a higher plane. His whiff rate over the past three games has rocketed up to an absurd 61.9%.

Three questions for the Padres’ offseason - The Athletic
Preller, who has arguably done his finest work on a tighter budget, is approaching the final year of his contract. In a statement to The Athletic last week, team chairman John Seidler briefly praised the general manager and CEO Erik Greupner, adding that “all discussions about the future will take place at the appropriate time in the offseason.”

Well, the offseason is already here. Preller no longer has the unwavering support of the late Peter Seidler, and the Padres, despite spending an unprecedented amount of resources over the past decade, have advanced beyond the second round of the postseason only once.