LA Times hyping up Padres ahead of Dodgers series is a bad omen

The Dodgers' little brothers over in San Diego have, very unfortunately, been playing extremely good baseball for quite a while now. The Padres have the best second-half record of any team and are coming off of a sweep of the White Sox (though that wouldn't have been hard for even the Miami Marlins), while the Dodgers just struggled through a set against the Rockies at home.

LA and San Diego have clashed 10 times already this year, and the Dodgers are playing .300 baseball against them. They'll meet for the last time during the regular season for three games starting on Tuesday, with the Padres just three games back for the division lead. This means that the Dodgers need to avoid being swept at all costs, but their first series win against the Padres this year wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

As good as the Dodgers have been in the second half (.627 winning percentage through their series against the Rockies) despite all of their pitching injuries, it's clear that LA is on the back foot heading into this series.

Even the LA Times, whose Dodgers fandom is literally required, seemed to think so. Bill Shaikin extolled the virtues of AJ Preller and the Padres front office ahead of the three-game series.

Even the LA Times doesn't seem to have much faith in the Dodgers ahead of Padres series

Shaikin stopped just short of saying outright that the Padres look like a better team than the Dodgers right now, but that's definitely the vibe the entire piece gives off. He ended it with a quote from Preller: "What we've tried to build is an organization where every single year, a fan can start the season and say, 'If things go right and the baseball gods smile upon us, we can win the World Series this year.' We feel like we have that type of team this year." Way to hype up the home team, LA Times!

The Dodgers know that this series is pivotal, and losing it could lead to a desperate run against the Rockies to close out the season and hang onto first place in the division. Since the Wild Card was introduced, the Dodgers have avoided a terrifying short series every season except 2020 (no one did) and 2021 (What got into the Giants' cornflakes?). A team that cost over a billion dollars to assemble shouldn't be the team that makes the wrong kind of history by being kicked to a Wild Card spot.

As unnecessary as Shaikin's take on Padres management was in an LA-based newspaper, the underlying sentiment isn't incorrect. The Padres just look better. The Dodgers can never really be considered underdogs, but given their regular season record against San Diego, maybe they need to take that mentality into this series. It's clearly worked for the Padres all year.