As it had seemed would be the case for some time, the Padres found out Saturday they will begin the postseason away from San Diego.<\/p>\n
\u201cRoad warriors,\u201d Ryan O\u2019Hearn said Saturday afternoon. \u201cWe\u2019re going to Chicago to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
They might have to do it with a new backup catcher and with a pitching plan that seems tenuous.<\/p>\n
But they know where they will have to do it.<\/p>\n
The Cubs teased the Padres by losing six of their seven games between last week and this one, making it seem possible Petco Park would be where the two teams would face off in a best-of-three series beginning Tuesday.<\/p>\n
But it was never probable.<\/p>\n
All it did was delay the Padres\u2019 packing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you looked at it, they had a home game and had to lose the next two,\u201d Gavin Sheets said. \u201cFor me, I had in my head that we were going to Wrigley.\u201d<\/p>\n
When the Cubs beat the Cardinals on Friday, it meant the Padres would have to sweep their series against the Diamondbacks and have the Cubs lose their two remaining games in order for the Padres to get home-field advantage.<\/p>\n
The Padres won on Friday, but when the Cubs beat the Cardinals again early Saturday, it made the Padres\u2019 remaining results meaningless.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow it\u2019s all set in stone,\u201d Sheets said. \u201cWe know who we got, we know what we got, we know where we\u2019ve got it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Padres went ahead and won on Saturday, hitting three home runs in the first two innings of a 5-1 victory over the Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n
The defeat was not without a potentially significant cost, though, as catcher El\u00edas D\u00edaz grabbed at his left side after taking a swing in the fourth inning and departed the game one pitch later. The injury was described as a mild oblique strain, and the Padres held out hope D\u00edaz will be able to play in the wild-card series.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine,\u201d a smiling D\u00edaz said late Saturday night. \u201cI will play, I hope. \u2026 I was just being careful.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his previous at-bat, in the second inning, D\u00edaz hit the third of the Padres\u2019 homers after Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the game with a blast to the third balcony of the Western Metal Building and Xander Bogaerts came up two batters later and sent a ball to the same spot.<\/p>\n
The real significance in Saturday\u2019s game for the Padres was in the performance of Michael King. And that, as has been the case with Padres starting pitchers for much of the past two months, was neither entirely encouraging nor discouraging.<\/p>\n
King retired the side in order in the second inning, but he allowed a single and hit a batter in the first and issued a pair of two-out walks in the third before being pulled after 49 pitches.<\/p>\n
The Padres have yet to name their starting pitchers for the series against the Cubs, but Nick Pivetta is virtually certain to start Game 1.<\/p>\n
King being pulled so quickly Saturday could mean he will join fellow starter Randy V\u00e1squez in the bullpen, as it would seemingly make him available to work by Wednesday. King could also be available to start a potential Game 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt definitely creates a possibility for him to be able to come back and pitch in a couple different roles, potentially,\u201d Shildt said.<\/p>\n
The Padres have been mulling Dylan Cease as a Game 2 starter. Yu Darvish is also a candidate to start in the series.<\/p>\n
The Padres (89-72) will finish the regular season Sunday afternoon with a chance at reaching 90 wins in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history.<\/p>\n
Mostly, they have turned their attention to the Cubs.<\/p>\n
Pivetta moved on to the postseason after his last start. The analytics department has broken down the Cubs\u2019 lineup and pitching staff. Manager Mike Shildt and the coaching staff have been consulting with the Padres scouts who have been following the Cubs for weeks. Shildt and the pitching coaches and members of the baseball operations staff have debated the makeup of the pitching staff.<\/p>\n
Said Shildt: \u201cWe spent the majority of the last couple days and a lot of time today getting prepared and ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The site of the wild-card series becoming official also meant flights did not have to be cancelled \u2014 not the team\u2019s charter on Sunday night nor the two chartered planes for spouses, various team employees and sponsors.<\/p>\n
There was also business for the players to attend to.<\/p>\n
Early Saturday afternoon, the team\u2019s veterans met to discuss how to divvy up playoff shares.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a playoff atmosphere surrounding the clubhouse and in everybody\u2019s mind,\u201d Jose Iglesias said. \u201cSo everybody is excited.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: September 27, 2025 at 8:10 PM PDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As it had seemed would be the case for some time, the Padres found out Saturday they will…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":261204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[1266,1306,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-261203","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-san-diego-padres","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115281809249808594","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}