The Los Angeles Dodgers are moving on to the NLDS after taking down the Cincinnati Reds in the NL Wild Card Series and the division rival San Diego Padres are … headed to Cancun! That’s what happens when you don’t hit!

The Chicago Cubs sent the Padres packing on Thursday with a 3-1 victory that had some controversy attached to it. But Padres fans will ignore the fact a potential Cubs rally was derailed by an awful replay review on Pete Crow-Armstrong’s steal of second base.

Instead, they’ll keep whining about the bad strike three call on Xander Bogaerts in the top of the ninth.

Was it egregious? Most would probably agree. Did it affect the outcome of the game? Possibly. But perhaps they should have … scored runs in innings 1-8?

San Diego scored five total runs in this series on 17 hits and five walks. It’s not like they faced a gauntlet of starters, either. Matthew Boyd, Andrew Kittredge/Shota Imanaga and Jameston Taillon aren’t exactly “aces.”

And for all the trash Padres fans talked this year about their potent lineup and how they have the star power to make a deep run, you’d think they wouldn’t have had a dreadful showing against a team that hadn’t won a postseason series since 2017.

Dodgers fans rip Padres fans for getting bounced from playoffs (and crying about it)

Padres fans have been lamenting on social media how that was a season-changing call. But again, if your team was so good, you wouldn’t have needed a miracle ninth-inning comeback to keep your postseason hopes alive.

Once again, the Padres achieved the bare minimum, which has essentially been the case every single year except 2022.

They can always look back on their NL West dominance this year. After all, they did briefly take the division from the Dodgers for … 24 whole hours.

Fernando Tatis went 1-for-12 with four strikeouts in this series. Manny Machado had a huge hit in Game 2, but he finished 1-for-10 with three strikeouts. Two hits from their top offensive players. But don’t worry, San Diego “won the trade deadline” again because they made a few marquee additions while the Dodgers remained relatively quiet.

A number of analysts predicted a Dodgers-Padres NLCS, but everybody fails to overlook the fact San Diego has done almost nothing to prove they can withstand a legitimate deep postseason run. In some ways, they may never recover from last year’s blown 2-1 lead in the NLDS against the Dodgers.