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Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell, right, reacts in the dugout in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the National League Wild Card baseball playoff series against the San Diego Padres Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Gregory Bull\/AP Photo\/Gregory Bull<\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner hits a double against the San Diego Padres in the 9th inning of Game 2 of the National League Wild Card baseball playoff series Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Gregory Bull\/AP Photo\/Gregory Bull<\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs Seiya Suzuki is greeted by first base coach Jose Javier, left, after his single against the San Diego Padres in the fourth inning of Game 2 of the National League Wild Card baseball playoff series Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Gregory Bull\/AP Photo\/Gregory Bull<\/p>\n
Chicago Cubs Tyrone Taylor singles against the San Diego Padres in the eighth inning of Game 2 of the National League Wild Card baseball playoff series Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Gregory Bull\/AP Photo\/Gregory Bull<\/p>\n
The Chicago Cubs dugout watches in the seventh inning against the San Diego Padres in Game 2 of the National League Wild Card baseball playoff series Wednesday, Sept. 30, 2026, in San Diego.<\/p>\n
Gregory Bull\/AP Photo\/Gregory Bull<\/p>\n
SAN DIEGO (AP) \u2014 The Chicago team that didn’t have the pope on its side is heading meekly into the offseason.<\/p>\n
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Pete Crow-Armstrong and the Chicago Cubs came out to sunny San Diego and wilted like a tourist without enough sunscreen, swept out of the National League Wild Card Series by a San Diego Padres team eager for redemption and perhaps primed for a deep postseason run.<\/p>\n
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The Cubs lost 4-1 in Game 2 on Wednesday night at Petco Park to exit the postseason. They came in with the highest-scoring offense in the majors and head home having scored only one run on eight hits.<\/p>\n
They were ushered out by the Reaper himself, San Diego\u2019s All-Star fireballing closer Mason Miller who allowed Nico Hoerner’s one-out double \u2014 the Cubs’ only extra-base hit in the two games \u2014 before getting Carson Kelly to ground out to shortstop to end it. The No. 4-seeded Padres move on to face the NL Central champion and top-seeded Milwaukee Brewers in an NL Division Series.<\/p>\n
The loss by the fifth-seeded Cubs came several hours after the Chicago White Sox, who received a letter of support from lifelong fan Pope Leo XIV, swept the Houston Astros in Game two of an AL Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n
The Cubs beat the Padres 2-1 in a Wild Card Series last fall at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n
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Several Cubs players lingered along the dugout rail watching the Padres and their yellow towel-waving fans celebrate on a 69-degree night.<\/p>\n
Players hugged inside the quiet clubhouse.<\/p>\n
Crow-Armstrong, the frontrunner for NL MVP after becoming the first Cubs player to post a 40-40 season, struggled to find perspective while placing blame on himself.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of it feels good,\u201d Crow-Armstrong said. \u201cThat\u2019s it. So I\u2019m just feeling pretty disappointed in myself, but that\u2019s for me to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, the Cubs\u2019 1-2 hitters, combined to go 0 for 15 with one walk and eight strikeouts. Crow-Armstrong had the walk in Game 1. Each of them struck out three times in Game 1 while Crow-Armstrong had a walk.<\/p>\n
Asked how he’d process his performance, Crow-Armstrong said: \u201cThat\u2019s not really for me to answer right now. I mean, yeah, you can look at the scoreboard, you can look at the stat sheet, wherever you get your numbers from, and it is clear to see that I didn\u2019t contribute. So, that’s not for me to feel about right now. I wouldn’t process that well if I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Southern California native, who had 45 homers and 41 stolen bases, said the Cubs \u201cshowed a lot of heart and a lot of fight through all the challenge. But I mean, I would say to start, like, I show up. I show up when it matters in these games, you know? I think that would help us immediately, but that’s all I got right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cubs dominated the season series 5-1. The teams hadn\u2019t seen each other since July 1, when the Cubs handed the Padres their worst loss ever, 23-3 at Wrigley Field as they hit eight home runs.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe San Diego group, they threw the ball really well,\u201d Dansby Swanson said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t miss spots often, and if they did miss, it was in good locations. It\u2019s a really talented staff. They game-planned for us really well and we weren\u2019t able to get traction. We gave ourselves a couple of chances here and there, but, we weren\u2019t able to capitalize and keep anything going.\u201d<\/p>\n
Said manager Craig Counsell: \u201cYou’ve just got to go play well and win games. In the end, we\u2019re walking away unfulfilled and disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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See AP\u2019s full MLB coverage here<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs manager Craig Counsell, right, reacts in the dugout in the eighth inning of Game 2 of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818753,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2407],"tags":[72,5,34,576,99636,733,1101,4,33,9501,43,35,9496,39138,15187,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":["post-818752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego-padres","tag-alex-bregman","tag-baseball","tag-carson-kelly","tag-craig-counsell","tag-cubs-eliminated-wild-card","tag-dansby-swanson","tag-mason-miller","tag-mlb","tag-nico-hoerner","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-padres","tag-pete-crow-armstrong","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","tag-product-40784-ap-illinois-sports-only","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-sandiego","tag-sandiegopadres"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117364851210027152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}