Surging Padres 'hoping for a miracle' to make postseason
The San Diego Padres have won seven straight games and are keeping dreams of a surprising postseason berth alive.
"Still hoping for a miracle," Padres shortstop Xander Bogaerts said, according to MLB.com's AJ Cassavell. "We're still in until they tell us otherwise."
The Padres entered play Friday with a 75-78 record and sit four games out of the final wild-card spot in the National League.
San Diego owns the tiebreaker over the Miami Marlins and Cincinnati Reds but doesn't with either of the Chicago Cubs or Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Padres have a 0.6% chance to make the postseason, according to FanGraphs, and might need to win eight of their remaining nine games to stay in the mix.
Padres outfielder Fernando Tatis Jr. lamented how long it's taken the club to play to its potential after entering the season as a popular World Series pick.
"It was there," Tatis said. "It just was not happening. It was underperforming, and it was not playing as a group together. Now it looks like all of the pieces are just adding up. … We found an answer that we were looking for the entire year. Sadly, it took this long."