Padres Grind Through Cubs, Advance to NLDS
On Wednesday night, the San Diego Padres eliminated the Chicago Cubs from the playoffs with a 4-1 win. A sold-out, frenzied crowd watched the Friars get to Kevin Gausman early, scoring two runs in the second after a double from Ty France, singles from Jackson Merrill and Xander Bogaerts, and a sacrifice fly from Ethan Salas. A two-run homer from pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets in the fourth put San Diego up by three, and from there, the Cubs barely threatened. It was just the latest big moment in a summer full of them for the Padres: A team that saw its playoff odds drop to 7% in late July will now head to Milwaukee for the NLDS.
When you think about this generation of the San Diego Padres, a number of descriptors may spring to mind. “Exciting” works, for all the stars they’ve rostered and playoff runs they’ve made. “Unpredictable” captures the spirit of a front office bold enough to empty the farm year after year, postseason probability be damned. “Competitive” — you heard all those F-bombs during the game last night, yes? — applies, as might “brash,” particularly if you’re from Los Angeles or Phoenix.
But watching this game, I kept thinking about how poised they looked. It’s an unfamiliar feeling watching this group: Fernando Tatis Jr. is many wonderful things, but there’s very little mellow to him or the team he headlines. In an emotional game, though, which is exactly how they looked, and nobody epitomized that more than San Diego’s young catcher.
Brendan covers prospects and the minor leagues for FanGraphs. Previously he worked as a Pro Scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
At a glance, Saturday’s Game 1 probables will appear ever the mismatch: Miz v a bullpen game. But San Diego has the only pen capable of outstuffing Miz and Co. in the aggregate, even in the event of extra innings. The Padres won’t need a middling “bulk” guy to cover 3+ innings; they can pitch 6 relievers with sub-2.90 ERAs for ~1.5 innings apiece before Stammen ever notices that Buehler and Ray showed up to the park. And each and every one of these mercenary beasts would be available again on Sunday.
Terrifying.
When they get a lead, that Padres bullpen can really shorten games up. King is their only starter I fully trust and he was lights-out in game one, but as they showed in game two, if they can get a passable 4-5 innings from their other starters those bullpen arms can just overwhelm a lineup – even a good one. The Cubs led the league in wOBA, wRC+, and offense rating, but looked downright feeble these two games. Next up is a Milwaukee team that was third in each of those categories (wOBA, wRC_, and offense). We may be in for a lot of 2-1, 3-2 type games (which is great!).
My highlight of the game was the giant Capital One logo misplaying a flyball to right CF by Machado in the 3rd inning. I think the Cubs knew it was over for them after that play.
Postseason ad intrusions are even more insulting when they are incompetently handled. All of these broadcasts are so bad.
Unlike Tuesday night, the Cubs actually had chances in this game to keep up. They only had 5 hits, but they had 3 walks and a HBP, giving them about the same number of raw baserunners as the Padres (8 hits, 1 BB, 1 HBP).
The difference was that the Cubs were 1/8 with RISP, while the Padres were 3/6, with one of those 3 hits being a home run. It’s the hope that kills you in a game like this with a lot of missed opportunities for Chicago.
I thought for sure that the Cubs had to win this because it’s practically a law of nature that the Brewers will humiliate the Cubs at every possible opportunity. But this definitely is not better.
Where do the cubs go from here? It’s tough to win the division when Brewers are in the midst of such a good run and have a strong minor league system, even though the Cubs have more financial firepower. The short series are brutal, particularly to how the Cubs are built. The Cubs seem like one of the bigger market teams that “need” Skubal, but will ownership go for it? I bet they wont.
I think they probably are going to try to bring back a corner outfielder and to grab veteran starter on a 3 year deal like King or Mize or bring back Holmes. Maybe they make a larger splash for a guy from Japan.
Cubs ownership is more concerned about monetizing their real estate investments and sticking it to the union than contending for championships. Their team doesn’t have to do that to make gobs of money, they just need to be a wild card team or play for a spot in the last week or so of the season.
PCA is a polarizing player. If he is on your team, you love him. Has anyone ever gone from a 10+ WAR season to 0 for 7 with 4 K’s in the playoffs? Add to that an ill-advised challenge in the Top of the 1st in a low leverage situation and it was just not a good showing. I will now refer to him as PCK until he does something in the post season.
Trout was pretty bad in his one appearance vs the Royals
If they want to avoid more than 1 IP per reliever they can pick 3 spots with hitters other than Chourio, Turang, Bauers and Contreras, they can try people like Vazquez, Buehler and Ray.
Gonna go all old man coach here, but PCA seemed whiny about the check swing call and was bitching a lot.
I dont watch a ton of Cubs games and Im sure holding onto that comes from competitiveness, and Im also sure you don’t become an MVP caliber player with a bad attitude, but he shit the bed and his demeanor wasnt that of a leader.