The San Diego Padres are rolling this season and continue to creep up on the heels of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League West. They’re just two games back of the defending World Series champions and will face them in a couple of weeks.
In fact, the Padres will take on the San Francisco Giants, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Dodgers in the next few weeks, all crucial opponents in their division. Luis Arraez sees that as a challenge and made it clear he wants to face them all, with his eyes likely set on Los Angeles.
Via 97.3 The Fan:
Luis Arraez discussed how the offense can be more consistent, how he spends his off-days in San Diego and his evaluation of the first third of the season: pic.twitter.com/Li4DYyzTZN
— 97.3 The Fan (@973TheFanSD) May 30, 2025
“It’s a lot of teams… we face Dodgers, Arizona, San Francisco, same guys we are in the division with, and everybody wants to know, I wanna face those guys, we have a good team,” Arraez said.
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The Padres have just two days off in all of June and will clash with four NL West teams in total. It will be a good test for them, especially facing the Dodgers, their rival just up the highway in Southern California. The goal will be to get past them if needed in the postseason, just like they did a few years ago. San Diego fell short against them last year in the playoffs.
Arraez is having another impressive campaign. He’s hitting .290 and remains one of the best contact hitters in baseball. He’s only struck out five times in 193 at-bats so far. The veteran is such a valuable piece to this roster on both sides of the ball.
The Venezuelan made MLB history in 2024, becoming the first player to win a batting title with three different ball clubs. While the individual accolades are great and all, you can sense how badly Arraez wants to win a championship with the Padres.
San Diego will begin a three-game set with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Friday night. They currently own a 31-23 record.
Quinn Allen is a Senior Associate Editor with ClutchPoints. He specializes mainly in soccer, basketball, and baseball. When Quinn isn’t producing content for CP, he’s writing sports betting predictions for numerous sites across North America.
