Peter Seidler now presides over the San Diego Padres but famously came of age with the Los Angeles Dodgers, as the grandson of famed owner Walter O'Malley and a devout listener of legendary broadcaster Vin Scully. Since helping to purchase the Padres a decade ago, Seidler has made it his mission to elevate the franchise to the Dodgers' level of excellence, a pursuit that has become increasingly more overt in recent years. And so he was the ideal person to cut to the heart of the matter.
"They're the dragon up the freeway that we're trying to slay," Seidler said during an in-game interview on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.
The Dodgers have won the National League West eight of the last nine years and will likely cruise to another division title in 2022. The Padres have made the postseason only once in the last 15 years -- during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season -- and are struggling to maintain ground at the moment. The events of last week seemed telling.
The Padres stirred the sport with a massive haul leading up to the trade deadline, acquiring not just Juan Soto -- quite possibly the biggest trade acquisition in baseball history, given his age and his accolades -- but also Josh Bell, Brandon Drury and Josh Hader. The Dodgers, meanwhile, did relatively little. And yet they dominated the Padres during their series in L.A. this weekend, out-scoring them by a combined 16 runs in a three-game sweep.
The Padres are 2-8 against the Dodgers this season and have lost 17 of their last 19 against them. That seems like a big problem, given their aspirations -- a problem they'll need to solve quickly.
"We still have some more games left with them, but we're gonna have to play better than this," Padres manager Bob Melvin said. "It's been all season."
The Padres, trailing the Dodgers by 16 games, must shift their focus to other teams for the time being. They began the week only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers for the third and final wild-card spot and 3 1/2 games behind the Atlanta Braves for the first spot -- the one they really want because it would allow them to host the entirety of the opening three-game series.
But the Dodgers are always looming. The Padres will play at least nine more games against them this season, all of them in September, and will probably have to get through them to reach the World Series for only the third time in franchise history.
The last time the Padres won a season series against the Dodgers was in 2010. Since then, they sport a .337 winning percentage against them. Over these last 19 regular-season head-to-head matchups, the Padres' offense has mustered only 12 home runs and their staff has pitched to a 5.39 ERA. Maybe it's just a coincidence. Maybe the Padres match up better than that stretch suggests. (It's important to note that they won seven of eight against the Dodgers right before going 2-17.) Maybe none of this will matter in October.
"We both have really good teams," Soto said Sunday night. "They have really good pitchers, and we have really good pitchers. They have really good hitters, and we have really good hitters. The only thing we need is to just score more runs than they do."
If only it were so simple.
Below is a look at how the Padres can close what still feels like a sizable gap with a Dodgers team that has kept them in their rearview mirror -- how they can slay the dragon, if you will.
Get Tatis healthy and Machado back on track
The Padres' recent struggles against the Dodgers come with one major caveat: They don't have Fernando Tatis Jr., one of the most electrifying players in the sport. It's difficult to explain the true impact of Tatis; he is an undoubtedly talented player, but it also seems as if the entire team feeds off his energy. Without Tatis, the Padres have averaged 1.8 runs in 10 games against the Dodgers since the start of the 2021 season.
Tatis has spent all year recovering from surgery to his left wrist but is currently on a rehab assignment and is scheduled to return long before the Padres and Dodgers meet again on Sept. 2.
By then, the Padres hope Manny Machado will be back to being himself, too. Scouts who have watched the Padres in recent weeks believe Machado might still be dealing with pain in the left ankle that forced him to miss nine games in late June. His numbers -- .214/.288/.420 since returning -- seem to support that claim. Machado would never admit it, though; he's as tough as they come, and he hardly ever misses time.
Early in the year, while making a run at an MVP, Machado showed he's good enough to almost single-handedly carry an inferior offense. If he gets hot again, and Tatis is back, and Soto is Soto, the Padres' superstar trio can be every bit as good as -- if not better than -- the Dodgers' group of Mookie Betts, Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman.
And then it'll really get fun.
Get the other big guys going
Machado, Soto, Bell, Drury and Jake Cronenworth went a combined 6-for-49 during the weekend series at Dodger Stadium. The Padres hardly have a chance under those circumstances, especially now that their starting pitchers are going through something of a rough patch.
But those struggles have extended throughout the season. Machado, Cronenworth and Jurickson Profar -- their three key guys at the top of the lineup before the Soto acquisition -- have combined for a .174/.231/.266 slash line in 117 plate appearances against the Dodgers this season, which probably says all you need to know about why the Padres have been outscored by a combined 37 runs in the season series.
The Padres' offense was heavily dependent on those three men because it lacked any substantive depth. That is no longer the case. The additions of Soto, Bell and Drury have changed the dynamic entirely, and now the Padres are simply waiting on their new acquisitions to play to elite levels. But adjusting in the wake of a midseason trade can at times prove difficult. Machado, dealt to the Dodgers in the summer of 2018, knows that well.
"It's definitely not easy," Machado said. "Definitely different, going coast to coast, and it takes a lot to get used to. But like we've been preaching every day to them, 'Go out there and be yourself. There's nothing to change. You're here to help us win, but continue doing what you've been doing all year.' They've had successful years. That's all we ask. Keep playing baseball. That's all it is."
Get the Dodgers out of the air
No team is better than the Dodgers at elevating the baseball, and the Padres have felt that like few others. The Dodgers have homered 17 times in 10 games against the Padres this season and 37 times over the course of their last 19. The latter is a rate of 315 home runs when stretched out over a 162-game season; it would smash the all-time record of 307 set by the 2019 Minnesota Twins.
Max Muncy and Will Smith homered on Saturday, Cody Bellinger went deep twice -- both to the opposite field -- on Sunday. And that's another problem. Muncy, Bellinger and Justin Turner have struggled for most of the season. But those three have thrived against the Padres, batting a combined .276/.320/.690. In other words, the Dodgers are getting contributions throughout their lineup, not just from their three superstars at the top.
The Dodgers consistently stick to the mantra that every game matters, regardless of the opponent. But it seems as if they find another gear whenever they face the Padres. Their focus seems sharper, their intensity heightened. The six-month regular season can often feel tedious, and teams that consistently play deep into October will often struggle to find motivation for games in August. But Los Angeles seemed to find inspiration this weekend, against a Padres team that stole all the headlines looking to make a run at their rivals at the trade deadline.
The Dodgers answered, and the Padres are still trying to figure out how to match them.