Padres drop one to the Diamondbacks, juuuuuust about out of it now, but not quite

The Padres lost the opener to the Diamondbacks and have now juuuuuust about fallen out of the Wild Card race. Eric Stults only gave up 3 runs over 6 innings, but the bats were unusually silent tonight. Arizona has a stranglehold on third place in the west, sitting 2 1/2 games up on the Padres.

Our Wild Card Elimination number is now 8 with 14 games left. I'm fairly confident that the Padres won't lose 8 of their next 14, and, assuming they don't, this will mean that they'll go down with this season putting up one of the best fights any of us have seen from a team.

Put it in perspective. The Florida Marlins' elimination number is two. The Rockies have been eliminated for a couple of months now. The Mets are in the Padres' rear view mirror.

Put it in more perspective. The Philadelphia Phillies have three more wins than the Padres. Doesn't that number seem insane? Imagine if the Padres had been merely adequate in April instead of nightmarishly horrible. Couldn't you imagine having three more wins?

Oh well. In any case, I'm sure the Padres can finish up this series strong with the Diamondbacks and I'm looking forward to the Dodger series. Keeping Adrian Gonzalez out of the playoffs will be like a win for everybody everywhere. Dodger Fan, you too. You don't want Adrian Gonzalez in the playoffs. Trust me, you'll never hear the end of it, except he won't actually be talking to you Dodger Fan, because he doesn't actually care about fans or anything like that, only his teammates... who hate his guts.