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Can Padres win 88 games this season? Make the playoffs?

Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

If you listen to the Mighty 1090 you may have heard them use a snippet of a phone interview with Padres Chairman Ron Fowler saying that the Padres are "in it to win it".  He says he thinks that the team will need 88 wins to make it into the MLB post season.  At the beginning of the season it was inspirational now it just seems doubtful.

Only two Padres team have gotten into the playoffs with 88 wins or less.  The 2005 team with 82 wins and the 2006 team with 88.  The 1989 team and the 2007 team both had 89 wins and neither made the post season.  Neither did the 2010 team with 90 wins.

Is it even possible for a 37-41 team like the 2015 Padres to get 88 wins?   Here's a spreadsheet of all the teams with 88 or more wins and where they stood after 78 games.

Year

Wins in first 78 games

First 78 Win %

Season Wins

Season Games

Season Win %

2006

41

52.56

88

162

54.32

2007

45

57.69

89

163

54.6

1989

38

48.72

89

162

54.94

2010

46

58.97

90

162

55.56

1996

39

50

91

162

56.17

1984

46

58.97

92

162

56.79

1998

50

64.1

98

162

60.49

It appears that the Padres will need to mimic the 1989 Padres game plan if they're going to get there.  With the pinstriped brown and orange retro uniforms already made up for a few select Wayback Wednesdays, now would be the time to really go "all in" and start wearing those threads every day.  That's part of the solution for sure.  Then they'll actually have to get to the playoffs unlike the 1989 team.

Another question I asked of myself was how many Padres teams have ever won 51 of 84 games?  I ran some numbers.  It's happened 120 times in quite a few different seasons.  The 1984, 1988, 1989, 1996, 1998 and 2010 all had at least 51 wins in a stretch of 84 games.  The 1998 team had the best 84 game record with 57 wins.

Start Date

End Date

Wins

1988-Jun 9

1988-Sep 11

51

1989-Jun 29

1989-Oct 1

51

1989-Jun 17

1989-Sep 20

51

1989-Jun 18

1989-Sep 21

51

1989-Jun 19

1989-Sep 22

51

1989-Jun 20

1989-Sep 23

51

1989-Jun 21

1989-Sep 24

51

1989-Jun 23

1989-Sep 25

51

1989-Jun 27

1989-Sep 29

51

1989-Jun 28

1989-Sep 30

51

1996-Jun 21

1996-Sep 22

51

1996-Jun 26

1996-Sep 28

51

2010-May 21

2010-Aug 25

52

2010-May 22

2010-Aug 26

52

2010-Apr 16

2010-Jul 21

52

1984-May 16

1984-Aug 15

53

1984-May 17

1984-Aug 16

53

1998-May 26

1998-Aug 28

57

So it can be done!  But it will be ridiculously hard.