The calendar had finally turned, and the Chicago Cubs arrived on the West Coast carrying the weight of a summer that looked, on paper, like the start of something longer.
They had led the majors in runs. Their lineup was built around names that fill Wrigley Field, and the club had spent months talking like a team that expected to be playing deep into October. A short series against San Diego was supposed to be the first step, not the last one.
Petco Park did not care about the resume. The crowd showed up loud, the home club showed up sharper, and two nights were enough to strip the season down to what it actually was.
The Padres swept the Cubs out of the National League Wild Card Series on Wednesday night, winning 4-1 after an 8-0 opener. There will be no Game 3. Chicago is done.
Former catcher A.J. Pierzynski, speaking on Foul Territory, put the result in the plainest terms available.
“When you get swept and you don’t hit, it just makes you look like you’re not on the same level,” Pierzynski said.
That was the brutal reality check. For two games, the clubs did not look like peers. They looked like teams operating on different floors of the sport.
Chicago managed eight hits in 18 innings, and seven of them were singles. The offense that paced the regular season never found a clean swing against San Diego’s pitching.
Game 1 removed any doubt about the gap. Michael King threw seven scoreless innings. Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado homered in the first against Matthew Boyd, and the Padres rolled to eight runs. The Cubs never scored.
Game 2 was tighter and no kinder. Xander Bogaerts drove in a run. Ethan Salas added another. Gavin Sheets, batting as a pinch hitter, launched a two-run homer in the fourth that turned a one-run game into a 4-1 Padres lead.
The bullpen finished the job. Bradgley Rodriguez, Jason Adam, Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller covered the late innings without allowing a run. Chicago’s best chance of the night came and went.
Regular season history offered no cover. The Cubs had taken five of six from San Diego before October. Those games stopped mattering the moment the series began.
A year earlier, Chicago had ended the Padres’ postseason at Wrigley Field. This time the return trip never happened. San Diego advanced and will open a division series Saturday in Milwaukee against the Brewers, who won 103 games, the best record in the majors.
The Padres have been the hotter club for weeks, winners of 20 of 23 since Sept. 5. They played like it. The Cubs, who had stumbled late, played like a team that had already lost the thread.
Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, the bats Chicago needed most, were kept quiet. Talent on the roster did not translate into traffic on the bases or runs on the board.
Pierzynski’s line leaves little room to dress the exit up. A sweep without hits is not a bad bounce or a thin margin. It is a picture of a club that spent its only two playoff games looking overmatched.
Chicago will spend the winter sorting through why the bats vanished. The Padres do not have that luxury, or that problem. They are still playing.
