LOS ANGELES — Ten days ago, after a lopsided victory in San Francisco, Joe Musgrove told his teammates he’d never had as much fun in baseball as he had this season. The San Diego Padres were a few wins away from securing a chance to repeat what they accomplished in 2022. That fall, Musgrove delivered in what was then the biggest game of his career. Less than a week later, he excelled again as San Diego pulled off one of the biggest upsets in playoff history.

Those Padres ended up having a lot of fun. They beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Division Series. They reached the franchise’s first National League Championship Series in 24 years. They also spent much of that summer torturing their fans.

“We had a good run, but I don’t feel like anyone really knew what made us so good,” Musgrove said Tuesday afternoon. “I feel like we just got hot at a good time and we were riding a wave of energy. It was kind of a blackout month. I think everyone just stepped up at a big moment, but there was no big plan or steps that we took to get us to that point. It just happened.

“This year we’ve had these plans in place from the beginning, how we’re going to get to this point in the season and how we’re going to behave, the things we’re going to do. And it’s going exactly as we hoped.”

The Padres secured a return to the postseason on Tuesday night with a game-tying triple play to beat the Dodgers 4-2. Their recovery from a disastrous 2023 has been evident since spring training.

“We believe we are this team,” left fielder Jurickson Profar said. “Early on, midway through the season, the results weren’t there because we were maybe missing a couple of hits, a couple of pitches. And then after the All-Star break, everything fell into place.”

At halftime, the Padres were just one game above .500, one of several National League teams in the clear for playoff contention. After the break, however, the Padres won 19 of their first 23 games to clinch a wild-card spot and skyrocket their playoff chances.

Rookie of the Year candidate Jackson Merrill, midseason trade addition Luis Arraez and Profar, a first-time All-Star, have boosted the Padres’ lineup, while offseason additions Dylan Cease and Michael King have led the rotation. At 33, Robert Suarez has emerged as one of the game’s better closers. The Padres, with five more wins in the next five days, can win the National League West for the first time since 2006.

Even as a wildcard they would be dangerous in October.

And they’ve been eyeing these kinds of opportunities for years.

The Padres began in earnest with the free-agent signing of Manny Machado in 2019 and have spent the next half decade raising salaries and adding talent. Between 2019 and 2023, the Padres traded multi-positional Jake Cronenworth and starting pitchers Yu Darvish and Musgrove. They signed Korean infielder Ha-Seong Kim, acquired (and kept bringing back) Profar, signed Fernando Tatis Jr. to a $340 million extension and made a 2022 trade deadline splash for outfielder Juan Soto. Last winter, they signed shortstop Xander Bogaerts to an 11-year, $280 million contract.

Salaries and expectations rose, but the Padres still missed the playoffs in 2019, 2021 and again in 2023 after starting the season as National League favorites and finishing just two games above .500.

Last winter, the Padres traded Soto to the Yankees, but received King and catcher Kyle Higashioka in return. They brought back Profar (for the third time), signed setup man Yuki Matsui and made a spring training trade for Cease. They added Arraez in May and bolstered their bullpen at the trade deadline. Machado has returned to form in the second half, fueling the Padres’ rise.

If they want to beat the Dodgers for a division title, the Padres still face the tough task of beating Los Angeles and then the Arizona Diamondbacks. But they are on track for their most wins in a quarter century, and this will be their third playoff appearance in five years (after missing the playoffs the previous 13 seasons in a row).

The Padres have been building this team for years and in the last three months they have made it back to the playoffs.

(Photo of Padres celebrating: Katelyn Mulcahy/Getty Images)