Padres ready to hunker down at home as calendar turns to September

MINNEAPOLIS -- A girl with ruby red slippers might have said it first, but Mike Shildt wasn’t thinking about “The Wizard of Oz” when he was asked about the final month of the 2025 Padres schedule.

“There’s no place like home,” Shildt said on Sunday after his team dropped its third road series in a row, losing 7-2 in the rubber match of a weekend set with the Twins at Target Field.

You can understand why the Padres might be eager to get back to Petco Park, where they have a 43-22 record so far this year (compared to 33-39 on the road). Those 22 home losses are the fewest of any team in the Major Leagues, and a key reason for optimism in the San Diego clubhouse as the calendar turns to September.

“We've got amazing fans, and we've got a great vibe there,” Shildt said. “We're comfortable there, we have the energy there, and we perform well there. We're excited about getting home.”

Since the All-Star break, the Padres (76-61) have a 12-4 record at Petco and have won all five series there. And after wrapping a 2-4 road trip in Seattle and Minnesota, 16 of San Diego’s final 25 games will be played at home -- as good a reason as any to have hope the Padres will have a chance to catch the Dodgers atop the NL West in the season’s final month.

It starts Monday with a three-game series against Baltimore. Then, after a weekend series at last-place Colorado, the Padres return to Petco for three with the Reds and four more against the Rockies. That’s 10 of their next 13 at home, most against teams far from the playoff chase.

Last season, the Padres rattled off nine wins in a 10-game stretch in mid-September to lock up a playoff berth, and this month’s schedule offers a similar opportunity for a battle-tested team that is filled with players who are no stranger to the pressures of September.

“Look up and down our lineup,” said Gavin Sheets, who went 7-for-11 with two RBIs vs. the Twins this weekend. “I think everybody’s played in the playoffs. And that's a huge, huge bonus going into September. … Everybody knows what it takes to get to October and what it takes to move through October. We’ve got a group of veterans, a bunch of guys that are ready to get after it and excited to play September baseball.”

Shildt indicated he thinks the 2025 Padres have shown they’re capable of matching last year’s September surge.

“We've had similar stretches this year,” he said. “If you look at the body of work, we've done a lot of that this year and been really consistent with it. … We have a good team, hungry, knows what it looks like, and we're excited to go dominate September.”

Spending most of the month at Petco will help that cause, though veteran teams also tend to find a way to get it done on the road when it matters most as well.

“The energy at home is incredible, and we’ve got to find a way to match that on the road,” Sheets said. “To play in front of 48,000 at home and it's rocking, it's easy to gear it up for that and bring it every night. We’ve just got to find a way to do that on the road. I think that's something we’ll figure out.”