How important to you is it that the Giants pass the Padres in the standings?

The San Francisco Giants are six games behind the San Diego Padres in the National League West. As a reminder, that was not supposed to happen. The Padres were supposed to hit poorly. They have, with an adjusted OPS of 84. They were supposed to pitch poorly. They have, with an adjusted ERA of 90. Their bench has disappointed them, and even their bullpen has been erratic this season. Not much has gone right for the ol’ Padres.

Everything for the Giants has gone worse, though. About six games worse.

Reminder that the Padres are paying $35 million to 30 players on their 40-man roster, and the Giants are paying $39 million for Matt Cain and Hunter Pence.

So I’m here before the Giants take on the Padres to ask you a practical question. How important to you is it that the Giants pass the Padres in the standings? There are a couple different routes you can take, here.

I don’t care about the Padres. I want the Giants to get the first-overall pick

Ah, a Tim Beckham fan. Yes, the Giants getting swept over the weekend improved their chances at the first draft pick in the 2018 MLB Draft, and sweeping the Padres right back would do nothing but harm those chances. Nobody cares about the Padres. Not even the Padres. Why screw up next year’s draft just for style points?

If you’re in this category, you want the Giants to stay the course and lose out. I’m not with you, but I can respect the pragmatism.

I care, but if they can’t do it, I’ll just roll my eyes the same way I’ve been rolling them for the last four months

If you’re in this category, you’re still invested in the Giants winning each and every baseball game, but you’ve allowed yourself a soft, fluffy pile of pillows to fall on if they let you down. Which they probably will.

But there’s something about finishing behind the Padres — the Padres! — that doesn’t sit well with you. The Giants haven’t finished behind the Padres since 2007, and they weren’t even trying this year. The Padres, I mean. Though in retrospect, I could be talking about both.

If the Giants can’t overtake the Padres, and the odds are overwhelmingly against them doing it, it’ll just be another merit badge on the Boy Scout uniform of sadness. No more, no less. It will make an annoying season that much more annoying.

This is my World Series now. This is all we have to root for, and I’m in

Seems a bit dramatic! If we were talking about the Dodgers, I could almost see it, but the Padres? Just let the 2017 Giants crawl under the last-place rock and die.

And yet I can respect this one, too. Let’s say that you’re you, and you’re desperately attempting to come up for a reason why you should watch a Giants-Padres game in August. There are more important things on TV, like NFL exhibition games and repeats of Tiny House Hunters, and you’re trying to convince yourself.

Beating the Padres is goal that doesn’t need context. It’s for the people who jealously watched them win a pennant in 1984 and 1998. It’s for the people who couldn’t stand Steve Finley or Kevin Brown. It’s for the people who still have David Eckstein flashbacks from 2010, even if the Giants won that year.

It’s for Giants fans, really. And if an August loss from a last-place team against a fourth-place team really gets your blood pumping, that’s cool with me. I’m jealous, really.

So which one is it? Vote in the poll that I’ll forget to attach for an hour!