LOS ANGELES (AP) — The San Diego Padres are back in the postseason for a franchise-record third consecutive year.
Now, they want to win a World Series for the first time, having been there twice only to lose.
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San Diego Padres' Sung-Mun Song, right, scores on a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Hunter Feduccia misses the ball during the seventh inning of a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, left, scores on a single by Austin Hays as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Hunter Feduccia, second from right, and pitcher Justin Wrobleski stand by during the seventh inning of a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr., left, and Jackson Merrill, celebrate with teammates after the Padres clinched a wildcard spot following a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Manny Machado, center, celebrates with teammates after the Padres clinched a wildcard spot following a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
Manny Machado fielded Mookie Betts' groundout to third base for the final out in a 4-2 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Thursday night that clinched a playoff berth, and the celebration was on.
“I was feeling nice,” Machado said in the cramped visitors' clubhouse, his bare chest soaked with a mix of beer and Champagne. “We're clinching!”
The Padres (89-70) partied inside and then came out on the Dodger Stadium field in matching black T-shirts to pose for photos. It'll be their third straight postseason as a wild-card team.
“I’ve never won a championship,” Machado said. “I know what winning looks like. It takes a whole village to do it and we’ve been showing it this year. There’s been a lot of guys contributing in so many ways. It’s awesome to see it being done.”
Fernando Tatis Jr. stole two bases for the fourth time this season and extended his on-base streak to 18 games with a walk in the fourth against the Dodgers. He was 2 for 3 with an RBI.
“Let's celebrate!” he screamed above the din in the darkened clubhouse. “We're here for a reason. We're ready to compete. We're here for the long run.”
The Padres made franchise history under rookie manager Craig Stammen, a surprise pick by general manager A.J. Preller to replace Mike Shildt, who suddenly retired less than two weeks after the Padres were eliminated by the Chicago Cubs 2-1 in the wild-card round last season.
The 42-year-old Stammen was hired less than three years after retiring as a player despite having no coaching or managerial experience at any level. He’s been with the organization since 2017 and is best known for starting the deciding Game 3 of the 2020 Wild Card Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, who at the time were managed by Shildt. He pitched 1 2/3 innings as the first of nine pitchers the Padres used in the 4-0 win, which clinched their first postseason series victory since 1998.
The Padres popped half a game ahead of the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 18 after Michael King struck out nine and Miguel Andujar hit a solo homer off Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a 1-0 win at Petco Park on May 18. But they lost the next night and fell behind the two-time defending World Series champions by double digits by late June.
They were 48-48 at the All-Star break and in third place in the division and have gone 41-22 since then. They came up with a “pitching chaos” game plan to get them through a difficult period with their rotation, which is still thin without Yu Darvish and Joe Musgrove, who have missed the whole season. Nick Pivetta only recently returned from a long stint on the IL.
Pivetta fired 4 2/3 scoreless innings on Thursday in his eighth career start against the Dodgers, allowing four hits and striking out seven.
Perhaps the biggest pickup of the offseason was first baseman Ty France, who was signed to a minor league free agent deal and made the team out of spring training, his second stint with the Padres. He is from West Covina, California, and played for Tony Gwynn at San Diego State. He’s hit a career-high 21 homers and played solid defense.
“I still felt like I had a lot left in the tank and a lot to offer to a team,” France said. “Very grateful and fortunate that it's here.”
Tatis had an unfathomable home run drought to start the season. He didn’t hit his first home run until May 30 at Washington, his 56th game. He’s now recorded his fourth 25-homer season and has 38 stolen bases.
“We're one, we're one,” he said of the team unity. “It's been that way for the whole year and we're going to keep it that way.”
Infielder Jake Cronenworth has come on strong after missing significant time after getting grazed on the jaw by a 96 mph fastball at Anaheim on April 18, and center fielder Jackson Merrill, like Tatis, is a 25-25 guy.
Stammen hasn’t been afraid to experiment with the starting lineup, including moving Tatis from right to second for several games after Cronenworth was hurt.
Back in right field, Tatis had one of the biggest games of his career on Aug. 18 at the New York Mets when he robbed Francisco Lindor of a grand slam and hit two home runs.
The Padres were 58-54 going into the trade deadline on Aug. 3 and Preller not only kept All-Star closer Mason Miller, but added starters Robbie Ray and Casey Mize.
“You can never count them out,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said this week. “They're just too talented.”
AP freelance writer Bernie Wilson in San Diego contributed to this report.
See AP’s full MLB coverage here
San Diego Padres' Sung-Mun Song, right, scores on a single by Fernando Tatis Jr. as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Hunter Feduccia misses the ball during the seventh inning of a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Jackson Merrill, left, scores on a single by Austin Hays as Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Hunter Feduccia, second from right, and pitcher Justin Wrobleski stand by during the seventh inning of a baseball game Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr., left, and Jackson Merrill, celebrate with teammates after the Padres clinched a wildcard spot following a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
San Diego Padres' Manny Machado, center, celebrates with teammates after the Padres clinched a wildcard spot following a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)
JERUSALEM (AP) — As the U.S.-created Board of Peace pushes ahead with plans to rebuild Gaza, it has said there’s no place for the U.N. body that for decades has provided support to displaced Palestinians. But the agency’s last chief says that behind the scenes, board members and others have been more open to working with the U.N. agency for Palestinians than it seems.
Israel wants the agency known as UNRWA out of Gaza and has repeatedly accused it of being infiltrated by Hamas militants, allegations the International Court of Justice says have not been substantiated. And yet UNRWA remains the territory’s largest aid provider, playing a key role in health and education.
Philippe Lazzarini, who led UNRWA until earlier this year, told The Associated Press that members of the Palestinian technocratic committee want to work with the agency. Another U.N. official shared with AP minutes from meetings where UNRWA and the committee discussed collaborating on plans for Gaza.
A Board of Peace official confirmed that board members had met multiple times with UNRWA officials.
And while the agency’s days are over, its programs “may persist if they are serving Gazans well,” the official added, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Israel's foreign ministry did not respond when asked about these remarks.
There’s been no reconstruction in Gaza, almost a year since the ceasefire. Israel still prevents the entry of the Palestinian committee chosen by the Board of Peace to eventually govern the strip, saying Hamas must first disarm. The committee says it needs to be inside the strip to activate Gaza plans.
That's left UNRWA on the ground in Gaza, with far more workers than any other U.N. agency or nongovernmental organization. It props up about half of Gaza’s public health system, said Lazzarini, whose last working day was March 31. He plans to publish a book this year about his tenure.
“They want to get rid of the agency, but on the other hand they know that if you get completely rid of the agency today, it might have a further additional devastating impact on the population,” Lazzarini said.
During the war, sparked by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, UNRWA temporarily took on a larger role, coordinating the entry and distribution of aid into the besieged Palestinian territory. Israel's attacks on the agency neutered that role, banning UNRWA international staff and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza.
But UNRWA's core programs remained, Lazzarini said.
It still has around 11,000 Palestinian employees in Gaza. They conduct about 14,000 medical appointments daily, maintain water and waste management systems for over a million Palestinians, run digital literacy and math programs for over 280,000 children and staff temporary learning spaces for 60,000 more, UNRWA says.
UNRWA makes sure aid reaches people, Lazzarini said. “If you want the vaccine to end up in the mouths of the children, you still need the workforce, the presence of an agency like ours.”
Publicly, the agency has not been included in the Board of Peace’s planning for Gaza. At Wednesday's board briefing, members named various U.N. agencies as partners in the territory's reconstruction, but not UNRWA.
However, behind the scenes, the Palestinian committee that will eventually govern Gaza acknowledged that UNRWA is necessary for planning, Lazzarini said.
Two senior U.N. officials and the board official told the AP the board had met multiple times with UNRWA since the ceasefire was signed.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, confirmed at least three meetings between UNRWA officials and the Palestinian committee this year, most recently this month. Two took place during Lazzarini’s tenure.
Shortly before the end of his tenure, Lazzarini said, he spoke to Ali Shaath, a former Palestinian Authority deputy minister who leads the Palestinian committee.
“Basically, he said, ‘I don’t know how I can succeed without you’,” Lazzarini said. Shaath and a spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment.
An internal U.N. description of a Jan. 26 meeting in Cairo, held without UNRWA, said Shaath praised the agency, showed a clear intention to see it back on track and said the Palestinian committee's system would largely build on its work.
The Tony Blair Institute, a Board of Peace partner, also asked for UNRWA’s help and spoke to UNRWA personnel, one senior U.N. official said. The institute did not respond to a request for comment.
At a pledging conference for UNRWA on June 30, the agency's current acting chief, Christian Saunders, called it “vital” to efforts by the board and the Palestinian committee to move forward with the ceasefire.
But the Board of Peace official painted a different picture, saying the meetings focused on determining how UNRWA’s operations work in order to develop programs that are “far more efficient and accountable.”
“UNRWA’s days are over,” the official said. Still, its employees ”will remain if they pass vetting and are delivering on their mandate and not advancing ideology or Hamas interests.”
Lazzarini said it's an “absurd contradiction" — the Board of Peace says UNRWA is not wanted while U.N. member countries “expect it to deliver.”
“We continue to emphasize that UNRWA is indispensable,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told journalists Thursday after over 50 countries attended a ministerial meeting on the agency at U.N. headquarters.
UNRWA was established to help Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
In January 2024, Israel claimed, in many cases without providing evidence, that hundreds of Palestinian militants worked for the agency and that over a dozen of its employees took part in the Oct. 7 attack.
Lazzarini said that he was never given written evidence to back up the allegations despite asking Israel and UN member states, but that he doesn't regret his decision to fire the employees accused of taking part in the attack.
“I did because it was in the best interest of the agency and the population we were helping," Lazzarini said, adding that he has faced “extraordinary vicious, heinous attacks on social media” as well as being accosted in the streets, "in Geneva and in New York” and shouted at by "pro-Israeli groups.”
His book, “A Witness to Gaza: What Cannot Be Erased," will be published in French in October, with an English version to follow.
Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
FILE - Palestinians receive aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Nusairat refugee camp, Gaza, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians gather to receive bags of flour distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees, in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip, Nov. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)
FILE - Palestinians receive bags of flour and other humanitarian aid distributed by UNRWA, the U.N. agency helping Palestinian refugees in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip, on March 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi, File)
FILE - Commissioner-General of the U.N. agency for Palestinian Refugees Philippe Lazzarini speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in Beirut, Feb. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein, File)
