The San Diego Padres rebounded to tie their best-of-three National League Wild Card Series with a 3-0 road win over the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday.
The Padres’ pitching staff continued to torment Chicago’s talented offense, and while they weren’t a juggernaut at the plate themselves, they came up with the timely hits needed to force a decisive Game 3. Here are the winners and losers as San Diego kept its season alive.
Winner: Mason Miller
Padres reliever Mason Miller set the internet on fire Wednesday afternoon with his combination of pinpoint accuracy and breathtaking velocity. Miller entered to begin the seventh inning and stuck around for five batters, striking out each one.
Of his 27 pitches thrown, Miller generated more whiffs (six) than pitches the Cubs managed to make contact with (four). Miller struck out Merrill Kelly looking in the seventh inning with a 104 mph fastball on the outside corner — a pitch Kelly might not have been able to turn around even if he’d managed to put a bat on it. The strikeout served as one of the biggest highlights of San Diego’s win.
After toiling in anonymity with the A’s during much of his first three seasons in the big leagues, Miller planted his flag on the postseason stage.
Winner: Manny Machado
Veteran third baseman Manny Machado put up his worst slugging percentage in a decade this season, but he still knows how to come up with big plays when the Padres need him.
Coming to the plate with one on and two out in the fifth, San Diego clinging to a 1-0 lead, Machado didn’t waste any time giving the Padres insurance. He clubbed the first pitch he saw over the wall in left field to make it 3-0. Machado has worn many hats during his 13 seasons in the big leagues, from fiery youngster to canny leader in his own right. Now, he might become the spark the Padres need to keep their season alive.
Loser: The Opener Strategy
The top of the Padres lineup is one of the most talented in baseball, with batting machine Luis Arraez supplementing MVP-caliber sluggers like Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr.
As such, Cubs manager Craig Counsell decided to go with an opener in a bid to spare would-be starter Shota Imanaga from needing to run that gauntlet on three separate trips through the lineup.
The strategy failed tremendously, as opener Andrew Kittredge allowed San Diego to take a 1-0 lead. It didn’t pay off on the back end either, as the top of the Padres lineup still got their licks in against Imanaga when Machado tagged him for a two-run home run in the fifth.
Loser: Chicago’s Slugging
Unlike in Game 1, there’s no specific player to blame for Chicago’s struggles at the plate. The Cubs enjoyed one of the best slugging offenses in baseball during the 2025 regular season, with their .430 team slugging percentage good for sixth.
That tendency all but vanished Wednesday afternoon as Chicago managed just one extra-base hit, a two-out double from Seiya Suzuki. The rally ended almost as soon as it began, with Pete Crow-Armstrong’s groundout ending the inning. Even though Chicago put the ball in the air far more frequently than it stayed on the ground (they recorded five groundballs to 10 fly balls), they couldn’t manage enough depth to create offense.
