​Major League Baseball has reached the ceremonial halfway point of the 2026 season with the San Diego Padres firmly entrenched as the worst offensive team in baseball with a .500 record.The record portrays them as a mediocre team, losing and winning the same number of games. The stats tell a story of a team that started strong, with lots of late-game heroics, and then struggled to score runs and pitch effectively since.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWith a series win over the Toronto Blue Jays before the All-Star break, the Friars salvaged that record after slipping below .500 with a dismal June and beginning of July. Padres fans don’t need a rehash of everything the team has dealt with over the past two months. Poor performance is the leading culprit, but injuries have also significantly contributed to a team underperforming its expectations.Of the current active roster, only Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Campusano are close to what should be expected from them, with Campusano on the injured list for the better part of two months.Infielder Ty France is performing very close to his career norms and is on track to finish on par with his best season in 2022. He has been a welcome bright spot for the Friars.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThird baseman Manny Machado is having his worst season as a hitter but is trending toward matching his season norms for both home runs and RBI. Remarkably, he just achieved a batting average over .200 while hitting 19 homers with 55 RBI.The pitching is a whole other level of miserable for the Padres. After having the best bullpen in baseball in 2025, the Padres have leaned heavily on their ‘pen with the starting rotation struggling to get into the fifth inning in many of their starts. The bullpen ERA is 3.68, fifth in baseball. That is still very good considering what has been asked of them.The starting rotation, which is mostly pieced together by reclamation projects acquired by general manager A.J. Preller during the offseason, has a 4.78 ERA and sits at No. 27 out of 30 teams. Inconsistency has been the downfall of this group. Injuries have also taken a big toll, losing Nick Pivetta early on.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementWhile they have all had encouraging and effective starts, Michael King is the only one with an ERA below 4.71. His 3.41 makes him the ace of the staff while averaging 5.7 innings per start.A team must have more than 80 wins to get to any level of the playoffs, 83 wins has been the lowest in recent years. The Padres sit at 48-48 with 66 games left in the season. Assuming 83-87 wins will get to the wild card spot, the Padres must win a minimum of 35 of their next 66 games to hope to get there. Eight games over .500 would be a safer bet and that would be 40 wins out of 66 games .The current starting rotation does not appear likely to achieve that level of success. With the trade deadline on Aug. 3, the next two-and-a-half weeks will determine the fate of the 2026 season.Ad