A World Series banner hangs in downtown Phoenix, honoring the Arizona Diamondbacks’ 2001 upset of the New York Yankees.

Go to the East Village, and you’ll see no World Series banner near the corner of Tony Gwynn Drive and Trevor Hoffman Way. The Padres last won a National League pennant in 1998, the Diamondbacks’ first year of existence. The Diamondbacks have since won two pennants — one in 2001 and another in 2023 — and captured one world title.

So it’s a bit cheeky of me here to point out a crucial truth.

The Padres have become the better baseball franchise.

Where San Diego seems headed toward a fourth postseason berth in six years, the Diamondbacks seem assured of missing the playoffs for the eighth time in nine years.

Contrary to most preseason forecasts by oddsmakers and pundits

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