Padres Wild Card Sweep Sends Them To Brewers In The NLDS

• Chicago’s 850 runs topped the majors, yet the Cubs scored once on eight hits across two games at Petco Park.
• Gavin Sheets, pinch-hitting in the fourth inning, homered on a 100.8 mph pitch with a man on to make it 4-1.
• Milwaukee won a majors-best 103 games and starts Jacob Misiorowski in Game 1 on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. PT.
• Milwaukee is a -227 favorite for Game 1, with San Diego at +188.

SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Padres beat the Chicago Cubs 4-1 Wednesday night at Petco Park to finish a two-game Wild Card sweep, and they open the National League Division Series on Saturday on the road against the top seed, the Milwaukee Brewers.

Sheets Breaks It Open, The Bullpen Closes It

Xander Bogaerts singled home Ty France in the second inning, and Ethan Salas doubled the lead with a sacrifice fly. Salas is 20, and no one younger has caught a postseason game. Chicago’s only run came two innings later, on a Nico Hoerner single that brought in Seiya Suzuki and sent Padres manager Craig Stammen to his bullpen with one out. Nick Pivetta was charged with that run on three hits across 3 1/3 innings, with four strikeouts and two walks.

Bradgley Rodriguez inherited two runners and stranded three. He got Matt Shaw swinging, plunked Carson Kelly to fill the bases and retired Dansby Swanson on a fly ball, leaving it 2-1. With two down in the home half, Gavin Sheets came off the bench and drove a Daniel Palencia fastball over the wall in right, Bogaerts scoring ahead of him. No Padre had ever homered on a faster pitch, regular season or postseason, MLB.com reported.

The bullpen handled the rest. Rodriguez stayed in for the fifth, Jason Adam set the Cubs down in order in the sixth, and Adrian Morejon needed only six batters to cover the next two innings. Mason Miller pitched the ninth for the first postseason save of his career.

The Cubs’ Bats Go Quiet

Chicago averaged about 5.2 runs a game over the regular season, the best rate in the majors, and then managed one in 18 innings of this series. Seven of the Cubs’ eight hits were singles, and Michael King allowed a lone hit over seven innings of Tuesday’s 8-0 opener, Hoerner’s one-out single in the seventh.

Two games are a small sample against a lineup built over 162, so the sweep says more about San Diego’s pitching than about Chicago’s bats. The bullpen that covered the final 5 2/3 innings Wednesday now gets two days to reset before Game 1.

Brewers Hold The Game 1 Price

Brewers manager Pat Murphy picked Jacob Misiorowski for Game 1 after a 16-5 season in which his 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts were both the best in the majors. Logan Henderson, 11-3 with a 2.47 ERA, follows in Game 2. San Diego had not named its Game 1 starter.

Team	Game 1 Starter	2026 Record	Game 1 Odds
Milwaukee Brewers	Jacob Misiorowski	103-59	-227
San Diego Padres	TBA	91-71	+188

At -227, Brewers backers need Milwaukee to win about 69 percent of the time to break even, while a Padres ticket at +188 breaks even at roughly 35 percent. The price is largely a pitcher’s price. San Diego still won the season series 4-2, dropping two of three at American Family Field in May before sweeping three at home in August.

The May 13 game is the template. Misiorowski fanned 10 and allowed no runs in seven innings but got no decision, and Sheets won it 3-1 with a two-out, three-run homer off Abner Uribe in the ninth.

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Games 1 And 2 In Milwaukee, Game 3 At Petco Park

Game	Date	First Pitch (PT)	Site
Game 1	Saturday, Oct. 3	5:30 p.m.	American Family Field
Game 2	Sunday, Oct. 4	1 p.m.	American Family Field
Game 3	Tuesday, Oct. 6	TBA	Petco Park
Game 4 (if needed)	Wednesday, Oct. 7	TBA	Petco Park
Game 5 (if needed)	Friday, Oct. 9	TBA	American Family Field

The Brewers are the No. 1 seed and host the first two games under the 2-2-1 format, so the Padres, the No. 4 seed, get their first home game Tuesday, Oct. 6, at Petco Park, with start times for Games 3 through 5 still to be announced.