San Diego came home with the kind of October answer it did not have a year ago: two games, two wins, a packed Petco Park roaring through the night, and a ticket punched to Milwaukee.
The Padres completed a National League Wild Card Series sweep of the Cubs with Wednesday’s 4-1 Game 2 victory, following an 8-0 blowout in the opener. Now comes the bigger assignment: the top-seeded Brewers, winners of an MLB-best 103 regular-season games, await in the Division Series. Game 1 is Saturday in Milwaukee.
“We are playing our best ball at the right moment,” first baseman Ty France said. “We are excited to keep it rolling.”
From Chicago disappointment to a Petco Park statement
San Diego had carried the sting of its 2025 Wild Card Series in Chicago. The offense had been struggling, the club failed to create many defining moments, and the Padres were nowhere near their home crowd.
- In Game 1, the Padres seized control with an 8-0 win behind seven dominant innings from Michael King. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado each homered, while King’s length kept the relief corps fresh for the following night.
- In Game 2, Chicago finally scored on Nico Hoerner’s fourth-inning RBI single, but that was the Cubs’ only run of the series. San Diego closed out a 4-1 victory and the two-game sweep.
- Bradgley Rodriguez, Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller combined for 5 2/3 scoreless innings in the clincher.
- The Padres now head to Milwaukee for Saturday’s Division Series opener against the Brewers.
The stars belonged to San Diego
The Cubs entered the series with an offense that had led the Majors in runs, walks, slugging percentage and OPS, while also pacing the National League in home runs. Pete Crow-Armstrong, a leading NL MVP candidate, and veteran postseason hitter Alex Bregman were expected to anchor that attack.
Instead, San Diego’s headliners took over the stage. Tatis and Machado supplied the Game 1 homers, and Xander Bogaerts and Jackson Merrill combined for eight hits during the two victories.
Chicago’s biggest bats never found a way in. Crow-Armstrong and Bregman went a combined 0-for-15 with eight strikeouts across the series. The Cubs as a team managed eight hits in 62 at-bats, a .129 average, and scored only once.
Crow-Armstrong did not dodge the result. He said the scoreboard and stat line made plain that he had not done enough to help his club.
Hoerner said the Cubs had prepared well, but noted how brutally short a best-of-three series can be. He credited San Diego’s execution, particularly the depth and quality of its bullpen.
A bullpen built for October
Once the Padres got in front at Petco Park, Chicago was forced to confront the very kind of relief unit San Diego assembled for this time of year. General manager A.J. Preller said postseason baseball requires a team to retire elite hitters repeatedly, which means having multiple answers ready in the bullpen.
Those answers were there Wednesday. Rodriguez, Adam, Morejon and Miller locked down the final 5 2/3 innings without allowing a run after Hoerner’s RBI single.
Pitching coach Ruben Niebla pointed back to King’s Game 1 workload as the pivotal development. By covering seven innings in the opener, King allowed San Diego to enter Game 2 knowing it had enough rested arms to cover the remaining innings. Niebla said the plan unfolded exactly as hoped.
The noise follows the Padres home
Machado has played in eight postseasons and has experienced plenty of hostile and electric October environments, including games in Milwaukee. Even so, he said the Petco Park atmosphere during this series stood apart from anything he had seen.
That home edge could matter again soon. The Padres would welcome two wins in Milwaukee, but a split would bring the series back to San Diego for Games 3 and 4 with Petco Park ready for another October turn at the plate.
