Below .500, Padres still lead NL Worst

SAN DIEGO -- Is this any way to try to win a division?

The San Diego Padres have again dropped below .500 while continuing to lead the NL West, making them the first team to top a division with a losing record this late in the season.

That's quite a distinction.

Even more amazing is that as awful as the Padres have played since June 1 -- they're a stunning 15 games under .500 in that span -- no one else in the NL Worst has been able to catch them for more than two days.

"I think it's been a while since there's been a division that's struggled as much as us, or has been devastated by injuries as much as we have," Padres manager Bruce Bochy said. "I think sometimes everybody loses sight of how hard every team has been hit by injuries."

The Padres got another painful reminder on Sunday when, while en route to being swept by Philadelphia for the second time in three weeks, shortstop Khalil Greene broke his left big toe diving for a ball.

Greene went on the disabled list Monday and will be out for two to three weeks, costing the Padres one of their most consistent bats.

The only Padres regulars from the opening day lineup who haven't spent time on the DL are right fielder Brian Giles and left fielder Ryan Klesko. Third baseman Sean Burroughs' bat was so sickly that he was demoted to Class AAA on July 23.

The NL West truly is sad-sack. At 58-59, the Padres lead the Arizona Diamondbacks (56-63) by three games. That's the same lead the Padres enjoyed on May 31, when they'd just finished the best month in franchise history, going 22-6 to jump to 33-19.

The Los Angeles Dodgers (53-64), written off by most everyone long ago, are only five back. San Francisco (50-66) is 7 1/2 behind. The Colorado Rockies, the worst team in the NL at 44-74 and the second-worst in the majors, are a mere 14 1/2 games behind the Padres.

If the Padres were in any other division, they'd be no higher than third. If they played in the NL East, they'd be last.

Oh, and by the way, Padres season ticket holders can now buy playoff tickets.

San Diego has had plenty of chances to bury its rivals, and probably should have a double-digit lead by now.

After All-Star Jake Peavy beat the Diamondbacks 4-1 on July 16, the Padres were 50-42 and had a 6 1/2-game lead.

"We've got a foot on their throats," Peavy said then. "I hope we can break their backs tomorrow, put some distance between us."

They didn't, of course.

"I guess we got a reprieve," Diamondbacks manager Bob Melvin said the next day after a 6-1 Arizona win.

"I think that's what's become the disappointment for us, the way we've been playing, because we've brought the other teams back into the mix as opposed to pushing ourselves away," Padres first baseman Mark Sweeney said.

The last team to lead a division with a losing record in August was Texas, which topped the AL West at 52-62 on Aug. 11, 1994. The players' strike began the next day, wiping out the rest of the season.

This division race, if that's what it can be called, is "definitely different," Diamondbacks left fielder Luis Gonzalez said.

"It definitely doesn't seem like there's one team really jumping out there to take the initiative to run away with this thing, which is good for us because we're behind San Diego," Gonzalez said. "So we're just going to go out there and keep playing hard and hopefully we can get on one of those winning streaks that we haven't had all year."