November 9, 2026
November 9, 2026
San Diego Padres 2025 Season: Ninety Wins and a Wrigley Heartbreak
The Padres’ 2025 season delivered everything a franchise could want except the ending. San Diego won 90 games, packed Petco Park in record numbers, and pushed the Los Angeles Dodgers deep into September. Then three October nights at Wrigley Field turned a summer of ambition into an offseason of reckoning.
Holding together a contender with a tighter payroll was the defining challenge of the winter. Shortstop Ha-seong Kim left for Tampa Bay, and left fielder Jurickson Profar signed with Atlanta. Reliever Tanner Scott crossed the division to join the Dodgers, and catcher Kyle Higashioka departed for Texas.
General manager A.J. Preller answered with value rather than splash. Right-hander Nick Pivetta signed a four-year, $55 million deal after leaving Boston. Veterans such as Gavin Sheets, Jose Iglesias, and Jason Heyward arrived on modest terms. The rotation also absorbed a major blow, as Joe Musgrove missed the entire year after Tommy John surgery.
Expectations remained high regardless. The core of Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Jackson Merrill, Xander Bogaerts, and Jake Cronenworth was intact. Manager Mike Shildt, entering his second year, had a roster built around pitching depth and contact hitting.
Any doubt about the reshaped roster vanished in the first three weeks. San Diego seized seven straight wins to open the year, its longest winning streak of the season. An April 16 victory over the Chicago Cubs lifted the club to 15-4. That mark tied the best 19-game start in franchise history.
The Padres closed March and April at 19-11. Machado anchored the lineup, Tatis supplied speed and power at the top, and Luis Arraez kept slapping singles into open grass. The start built a cushion that would matter for months.
The momentum stalled as soon as May arrived. A six-game losing streak from May 16 to May 22 dragged the club back toward the pack. The Padres went 13-13 that month before slipping to 13-15 in June. Injuries thinned the staff, with Yu Darvish recovering from elbow trouble and Michael King limited to 73 1/3 innings.
Machado gave the summer its signature moment. In early July against Arizona, he collected the 2,000th hit of his career. The milestone cemented his standing as the franchise’s veteran heartbeat. Robert Suarez, Adrian Morejon, and Jason Adam all earned All-Star selections, a clear signal of where the team’s real strength lived.
Preller has never been shy at the deadline, and July 2025 was no exception. San Diego landed flamethrowing closer Mason Miller and left-hander JP Sears from the Athletics. The price was steep, headlined by top shortstop prospect Leo De Vries. Miller, under team control through 2029, was a long-term weapon rather than a rental.
He was devastating in San Diego. Over 22 games, Miller posted a 0.77 ERA and struck out 45 batters. Pairing him with Suarez gave the Padres the most frightening late-inning tandem in the National League.
The offense received its own jolt. A trade with Baltimore brought first baseman Ryan O’Hearn and outfielder Ramon Laureano. Catcher Freddy Fermin arrived from Kansas City in a separate deal. Left-hander Nestor Cortes and utility man Will Wagner rounded out a flurry of five trades.
The Padres held on to Suarez and Dylan Cease rather than cash them in. That decision made the club’s intentions plain. This roster was built to chase a title immediately.
O’Hearn arrived as a 2025 All-Star, and Laureano gave the lineup a right-handed bat it had badly lacked. Those additions defined the second half of the Padres’ 2025 season. When Laureano went down with an injury before October, Shildt lost the hitter he wanted in the seventh spot against Chicago’s left-handed relievers.
Run prevention, not slugging, defined this team. The Padres finished with a 3.64 team ERA and allowed only 621 runs. The offense, by contrast, hit a modest 152 home runs. The relief corps turned close games into near-certain wins.
Suarez saved 40 games, and Morejon was nearly untouchable with 13 wins and a 2.08 ERA. Pivetta became the steady starter the rotation desperately needed. He went 13-5 with a 2.87 ERA and 190 strikeouts. Cease fought through a 4.55 ERA but still struck out 215 hitters.
Shildt leaned on that depth without apology. He shortened games aggressively, trusting his late-inning arms to protect slim leads. That approach suited a lineup that rarely produced blowouts.
At the plate, Machado led the club with 27 home runs and 95 RBI. Tatis added 25 homers and 32 stolen bases, Sheets clubbed 19 homers, and Arraez hit .292.
August brought the Padres’ best push of the year. San Diego went 16-12 that month and sat atop the NL West as late as August 23. It was the club’s latest division lead since 2010. For a franchise long overshadowed by Los Angeles, the standings finally looked like a fair fight.
The Dodgers eventually pulled away, and San Diego finished 90-72, three games back in second place. The full record on Baseball Reference shows just how narrow that margin remained.
The berth itself arrived in dramatic fashion on September 22 against Milwaukee. Trailing for much of the night, the Padres clawed back to tie it and traded runs in the 10th. Then Fermin lined a first-pitch single to center in the 11th for a 5-4 walk-off. It marked only the second time the franchise had clinched postseason spots in back-to-back years.
Fans rewarded the effort all season long. Petco Park drew a franchise-record 3,437,201 fans, one of the strongest home crowds in the majors.
The Padres’ 2025 season reached its crossroads in Chicago. As the fifth seed, San Diego faced the Cubs in a best-of-three Wild Card Series. Pivetta was brilliant early, striking out nine without a walk while protecting a 1-0 lead. Then Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly hit back-to-back homers in the fifth, and Chicago held on for a 3-1 win.
Facing elimination, San Diego struck first. A double steal and a Merrill sacrifice fly produced runs in the first inning. Machado homered in the fifth for a 3-0 lead. Morejon, Miller, and Suarez then slammed the door, forcing a winner-take-all Game 3.
The decisive game unraveled almost immediately. Darvish was chased in the second inning after Chicago scored twice, and Michael Busch later homered off Suarez. Merrill went deep for the lone San Diego run. In the ninth, Bogaerts was rung up on a pitch well outside the zone, and the next two hitters still reached base.
Could one more swing have rescued the summer? Pete Crow-Armstrong answered by snaring a sharp liner in center to end it, 3-1. San Diego scored five runs in three games and went 3-for-26 with runners in scoring position. Tatis, Arraez, and Machado went a combined 0-for-22 in the two losses.
The Padres’ 2025 season will be remembered as a near miss built on pitching and bold trades. Back-to-back 90-win campaigns confirmed San Diego as a fixture in the National League’s upper tier. Yet the lineup’s power shortage proved fatal in October, exactly as it had threatened to all summer.
The biggest shock came eleven days after the elimination. Shildt announced his retirement on October 13, citing the mental, physical, and emotional toll of the job. He walked away with a 183-141 record across two seasons. His exit closed one of the most consistent stretches in franchise history and handed Preller yet another defining decision.
For a fan base that filled Petco Park night after night, the year left a familiar ache. The pitching was elite, the deadline was bold, and the crowds were historic. The championship that all of it was meant to deliver remained just out of reach.
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