CHICAGO -- Xander Bogaerts’ RBI double gave the San Diego Padres an early lead, but two fifth inning solo home runs turned the tide as the Chicago Cubs won game one of the NL Wild Card series 3-1 on Tuesday afternoon at Wrigley Field.
The Padres did not get a hit against Cubs relievers, as the Chicago bullpen retired 14 straight batters across four different relievers with Daniel Palencia earning the win and Brad Keller notching the save. Bogaerts had two of the four hits by San Diego in the game, but the Brown and Gold’s last baserunner came on a one-out single by Freddy Fermin in the fifth.
"It was a well pitched game, both sides threw out a lot of good arms, (starter Matthew) Boyd dodged some bullet early, we let him off the hook," manager Mike Shildt said. "We had a chance to add on, got the one to take the lead, and then I thought Nick (Pivetta) was fantastic, he was terrific."
Pivetta was nearly unhittable through the first four innings, notching five strikeouts his first time through the order. The San Diego starter finished with two runs allowed on three hits and struck out nine with no walks in five innings.
"I allowed my adrenaline to take over, kind of stay in my lane and do those things. I had a good season, so I just relied on that, relied on what I'd done and just focused on attacking hitters," Pivetta said.
The Padres gave him some support early on, but it could’ve been more.
After putting up 16 of his 47 regular season extra base hits in September, Jackson Merrill kept it going by leading off the second inning with a double off. Bogaerts followed up by hitting a fastball that Boyd left over the heart of the plate for an RBI double, then advanced to third on a Pete Crow-Armstrong throwing error.
But that would be all as the next three batters went down over a span of six pitches.
"We had a good start of the game today, towards the end we couldn't really much going, we had a lot of opportunities early on. I think the more opportunities you can create will be better for our team," Bogaerts said. "Guys will bring guys in, it's just that towards the end it was a little hard to see and those guys from the bullpen came in, it was hard today for us to put some stuff together.
The Padres had another opportunity in the fourth when Manny Machado led off with a walk and Merrill bunted him over. Bogaerts legged out an infield single on a bounding ball to the left side to put runners on the corners, but Ryan O’Hearn had a looping, tailing pop fly to shallow left center snagged by retreating shortstop Dansby Swanson. A flyout ended the threat.
"Probably the play of the game, coming off the bat I thought O'Hearn had a good approach, it got in on him a little bit but he stayed through it, right off the bat I thought it was gonna fall in there but Dansby got a nice drop-step and went out and made probably the play of the game," Shildt said.
Bogaerts was the only Padre to connect for a hit with runners in scoring position, as they came up empty on five other RISP opportunities against Boyd and three were with less than two outs. Meanwhile the Cubs had only three RISP at bats all game, coming up empty.
"It's hard in general to bring a guy home, and I think for the whole year we've been doing a job of that, bringing in guys with less than two outs, but Swanson made two good plays, so just one of those two (gets in) maybe that's the game," Bogaerts said. "It's a game of inches, so no luck there."
Chicago went to the pen after Boyd went through the lineup twice, going to Palencia with one down in the fifth. Palencia, who made his season debut in San Diego in April, did not allow a hit in 1 ⅔ innings with two strikeouts.
Pivetta had retired 11 straight heading into the fifth, but Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly homered back-to-back to start the inning. Both times it was the fastball that got tagged, with Suzuki turning on an inside offering and Kelly staying up to hit the pitch which was just above the strike zone. Suzuki had hit home runs in each of his final four games of the regular season.
"That one (Kelly's home run) is kind of a head-scratcher, it's a 'hats off to him' kind of situation," Pivetta said. "He took a really interesting swing on the fastball before that, on the down and away, so I just figured to attack him again with the fastball and he was able to put a good swing on it."
Adrian Morejon came on for the sixth and after allowing consecutive hits to start, got Ian Happ to ground into a five-four-three double play and left a man stranded on third by getting a flyout. Mason Miller struck out the side in the seventh.
The Cubs added another run in the eighth, as Swanson led off with a single off Jeremiah Estrada. After Matt Shaw executed a sacrifice bunt, Michael Busch was intentionally walked and Estrada spiked a splitter that allowed both to advance on the wild pitch. Nico Hoerner hit a sacrifice fly to center field, and Wandy Peralta came on to get the final out of the inning by K.
Game two of the NL Wild Card series will see San Diego start Dylan Cease (8-12, 4.55 ERA), while the Cubs have yet to announce their starter. First pitch is scheduled for 12:08 p.m. at Wrigley Field, with the game being televised nationally on ABC.
"We know what we're looking at, so we've got to take care of business tomorrow to set ourselves up to take care of business on Thursday, and we expect to do that and our clubhouse is disappointed, but nobody's hanging their head," Shildt said. "This is a good club who knows what they're capable of doing and is eager to show up to go compete tomorrow, Dylan will get the ball and we'll take it from there."
This story was updated at 4:16 p.m.