By Dennis Lin, Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma
CHICAGO — The sudden pop of back-to-back home runs by Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly lifted the Chicago Cubs to a 3-1 victory on Tuesday afternoon at Wrigley Field, pushing the San Diego Padres to the brink of playoff elimination.
The crowd of 39,114 remained relatively subdued through four innings as Chicago’s offense stayed quiet against Padres starter Nick Pivetta. And then Suzuki and Kelly flipped Game 1 of this National League Wild Card Series with two huge swings.
The last time the Cubs hit back-to-back homers in the playoffs was during their 2016 dream season, when Miguel Montero and Dexter Fowler did it against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series.
Now that the 162-game marathon has turned into a sprint, the Padres must quickly regroup or else their season could end on the first day of October.
The Cubs had to score against Pivetta
They may not have been scoring early and often, but the Cubs getting on the board before the Padres’ vaunted bullpen came in to lock down a lead felt essential.
“This is not a game where you try to get the starter up to a lot of pitches,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said before the game. “That’s irrelevant. We’ve got to create base runners and pressure and make pitchers make pressure pitches. They have a good bullpen. They have some guys that are pretty special.”
It wasn’t as if the Cubs kept getting runners on base and couldn’t cash in. They were doing very little against Pivetta until the fateful fifth inning when Suzuki and Kelly hit back-to-back homers to start the frame. It was absolute bedlam at Wrigley as Kelly’s high-arching shot finally landed in the left-center bleachers.
Counsell predicted a low-scoring series, and for one game, he was right. But the Cubs did enough against Pivetta to ensure that they didn’t face a deficit when ace relievers like Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller were on the mound.
Padres will regret missed chances to add on
The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second with consecutive doubles by Jackson Merrill and Xander Bogaerts. Then, with Bogaerts at third base after an error, the absence of the right-handed-hitting Ramón Laureano loomed large. Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd escaped additional damage by retiring Ryan O’Hearn, Gavin Sheets and Jake Cronenworth in consecutive order.
Two innings later, Merrill, the Padres’ cleanup hitter, laid down a sacrifice bunt. It was in character for a team that led the majors in bunts — and it was an arguably defensible move in a windy postseason environment — but a defensive gem by Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson and a Sheets fly out resulted in another failure to increase the lead.
Now, the Padres must defy the odds; since the postseason went to its current format in 2022, no team that lost the opener of a best-of-three wild-card series has gone on to advance. Laureano’s absence hurts, yes, but the Padres’ lack of opportunism and season-long dearth of power production could end up being their undoing.
The Cubs’ pitching formula worked
Chicago’s first choice to start Game 1 likely would have been Cade Horton, who posted a 1.03 ERA after the All-Star break and seemed in line for that assignment until a fractured right rib removed the rookie pitcher from the playoff picture.
While everyone — correctly — focuses on the bullpens during the postseason, Counsell reminded reporters at the beginning of this series, “We need outs from Matthew Boyd. That’s still part of this winning formula.”
Boyd did his job, limiting the damage and keeping his team in a 1-0 game when he walked off the mound with one out and one runner on in the fifth inning. Boyd went through San Diego’s lineup twice before Counsell pulled the lefty after 58 pitches, showing the appropriate sense of urgency.
Daniel Palencia, the 100-mph reliever who spent most of this season working as Chicago’s closer, handled the following hitters in the fifth and sixth innings: Fernando Tatis Jr., Luis Arraez, Manny Machado, Merrill and Bogaerts.
In matching up Drew Pomeranz, Andrew Kittredge and Brad Keller against the Padres, Counsell received three more scoreless innings out of his bullpen. In total, Cubs relievers got 14 outs while allowing zero hits and zero walks.
After an All-Star performance in the first half, Boyd showed some signs of wear near the end of the season but gave his teammates a chance to win Game 1.
If the Cubs are going to keep playing into deep October, they will need some semblance of reliable starting pitching. To Counsell’s point, every day can’t be a bullpen game. And who knows? Advancing far enough into the tournament could also potentially buy some time for Horton to return.
(Photo: Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
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