The Arizona Diamondbacks improved to 86-74 with a stellar 11-4 victory over the San Diego Padres.

The Padres clinched a spot in the playoffs on Thursday, Sept. 24, so it's not that this series doesn't matter, but a ton of pressure had been taken off San Diego as there's a chance they could've been swept by the D-backs and missed the playoffs entirely.

There's no doubt they picked the wrong time to be playing Arizona as this is a D-backs team that has won six straight games.

Arizona has now scored 23 runs in their last two. This winning streak began on Saturday, Sept. 19, and has been magical, to say the least.

Suddenly, with just two games remaining in the regular season, the D-backs have a relatively clear path to the postseason.

The Philadelphia Phillies have reached a new low as they are now only one game ahead of the D-backs.

Remember, Philadelphia's magic number is two, so the Phillies still control their own fate, but another loss for them will make things extremely interesting knowing the D-backs hold the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Talk about setting the tone, Lars Nootbaar wasted no time taking a 90 mph four-seam fastball deep.

Nootbaar put the D-backs ahead 1-0 on the first pitch of the game as he crushed a 403-foot homer that would lead to a three-run first inning.

Arizona wasn't done there. A 3-0 lead was great, but they would have an even more comfortable 7-2 lead by the top of the fourth inning.

The D-backs may have gotten outhit, 10-8, but they scored in each of the first four innings and later added three more in the sixth and another in the seventh.

Brandon Pfaadt improved to 8-3 after a dominant 7.2-inning outing. He allowed nine of those hits and all four of the Padres runs, but struck out seven batters in his 106 pitches and kept the bullpen fresh as a pair of pitchers was all Arizona needed to record four outs on 19 pitches.

Even with this incredible winning streak, the D-backs still need some help.

Winning out doesn't mean anything if the Phillies also turn things around and win their last two games.

Since Arizona has the tiebreaker over Philadelphia, all it'll take is for these two teams to have the same record at the end of the regular season, and the D-backs will be playoff-bound.