Now’s the time for SF Giants to bury struggling, chaotic Padres — and pull away from Dodgers

SAN DIEGO — Take a close look at what’s being written about the San Diego Padres.

“The Padres are showing organizational cracks, plural and galore,” wrote San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Bryce Miller.

A recent Athletic feature said, “As the Padres continue to spiral, the coaching staff’s positions, as well as (manager Jayce) Tingler’s, are in question,”

Following a nightmarish road trip that concluded with a sweep against the St. Louis Cardinals, MLB.com beat reporter A.J. Cassavell tweeted this: “A disaster of a trip. The Padres went 2-8 and were swept by the team they’re chasing. Their biggest stars feuded, their injury woes compounded, their lack of pitching depth was further exposed. Two weeks still to play. It would take something extraordinary.”

On Tuesday afternoon at Petco Park, manager Jayce Tingler had to address his standing in a tense clubhouse.

“I don’t think I’ve lost the clubhouse,” Tingler said. “Ultimately we haven’t played the way I think we’re capable of and let me start with this. As the manager, ultimately I’m responsible for the players’ performances.”

With two weeks left in the regular season, the baseball world has given up on a Padres team that appears to be in disarray.

The first-place Giants must capitalize.

At the outset of spring training, it was the Padres who were expected to challenge the Dodgers for a National League West title and the Giants were supposed to be the team that would struggle to finish at .500.

As the end of the regular season approaches, the opposite is true.

Tingler’s Padres are a mess. They’ve gone 22-33 since the All-Star break, seen their playoff chances disintegrate and had their two $300-plus million players, Manny Machado and Fernando Tatís Jr. get into a visible altercation in the dugout over the weekend at Busch Stadium.

Gabe Kapler’s Giants, on the other hand, are on top of the world. Their 97 wins entering play Tuesday lead the majors, they’ve hit the most home runs in the National League and they have a chance to win their first division title since 2012.

With six of their final 12 games against the Padres, the Giants have a chance to capitalize on an opportunity to wipe San Diego out and force a now oft-discussed shakeup to materialize. The key for San Francisco is winning, and potentially sweeping, this week’s three-game series at Petco Park because doing so could help make the final series of the season set to take place at Oracle Park Oct. 1-3 irrelevant for San Diego.

As the St. Louis Cardinals continue to surge in the wild card standings, the Giants’ goal is maintaining and potentially extending their division lead over the Dodgers while simultaneously crushing the Padres’ playoff chances. The Giants are set to send their two most reliable starting pitchers, Kevin Gausman and Logan Webb, to the mound in this week’s series in San Diego, and any missed opportunities to put the Padres away can haunt the Giants in multiple ways.

A series loss to the Padres could make San Diego a factor again in the wild card race, and the last thing the Giants want is to head into the last weekend of the season with a suddenly motivated Padres squad bubbling with confidence playing for a chance to sneak into the playoffs.

A series loss would also almost certainly give the Dodgers the window they need to close their deficit in the NL West, which is the scenario the Giants have been desperately trying to avoid for the last three-plus months.

Back in spring training, it was the Padres who could look at the end of the schedule and dream about the days of ending the Dodgers’ reign atop the division with wins over the Giants. Now it’s the Giants who are better positioned to win a division title, and to achieve that goal, they’ll need to put the Padres away for good.