CHICAGO — Twenty-seven outs into their 2025 postseason run, the Padres’ backs are against the wall.
They dropped a tense Wild Card Series opener, 3-1, to the Cubs on Tuesday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
In the history of best-of-3 postseason series, only two teams out of 20 have rallied from an 0-1 deficit to win the series. But the Padres — and the wealth of postseason experience on their roster — can look to their own history. One of those two teams was the 2020 Padres, who rallied after losing Game 1 to the Cardinals.
But — as it was in that series — if the Padres are going to mount a comeback, their bats will need to heat up.
Right-hander Nick Pivetta was mostly sharp across five innings of two-run ball. But after four scoreless, he allowed consecutive home runs to Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly to start the fifth. All in all, Pivetta was solid enough. The bullpen was solid. But the San Diego offense struggled, particularly as the game wore on.
The Padres grabbed an early lead with consecutive doubles from Jackson Merrill and Xander Bogaerts to begin the second inning. But they squandered multiple opportunities to build on that advantage.
Bogaerts advanced to third base on a throwing error, but was stranded there. With the infield in and nobody out, Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson made a diving snare of Ryan O’Hearn’s sharp ground ball. Bogaerts wasn’t running on contact and stayed put. The inning ended with a popout and a groundout.
In the fourth, Manny Machado led off with a walk and was curiously bunted to second by red-hot cleanup man Jackson Merrill. After Bogaerts’ infield hit advanced Machado to third, Swanson again made a remarkable defensive play on O’Hearn, backtracking and reaching over his shoulder in shallow left to catch a soft line drive.
That was the last Padres runner in scoring position.
