Padres finish off series win over Cubs

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 16, 2025

Published in Baseball

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SAN DIEGO — One loss was enough.

A day after dropping a game for the first time at Petco Park this season, the Padres beat the Chicago Cubs 4-2 on Wednesday afternoon to bring to a close their second homestand of 2025.

The victory improved the Padres’ major league-leading record to 15-4.

Nick Pivetta was outstanding for a third straight start in his new home park and avenged his only loss of the season by holding the Cubs to one run over six innings.

Jeremiah Estrada, Wandy Peralta and Robert Suarez pitched an inning apiece to close out the Padres’ 12th victory in 13 home games.

Pivetta (3-1, 1.57) has never had an ERA below 4.04 in any of his previous eight MLB seasons and never began a season with an ERA below 2.49 through his first four starts.

His one bad outing was April 5 at Wrigley Field, when the Cubs scored three runs on six hits and three walks over just three innings.

All three of his other starts have come in San Diego, and he has allowed one run in 20 innings. That run and four of the eight hits he has allowed here came Wednesday.

It was in his 17th inning pitching for the Padres at Petco that Pivetta allowed the run.

Seizing on a brief straying from the strike zone by Pivetta, the Cubs loaded the bases with no outs in Wednesday’s third inning before Kyle Tucker drove in a run with a sacrifice fly and Seiya Suzuki grounded into a double play.

The Padres answered and took the lead for good in the bottom of the inning.

Elias Díaz became the first Padres batter to reach base with a one-out walk, moved to third base on a single by Tyler Wade and ran home to score the tying run on an infield single by Fernando Tatis Jr. And after Luis Arraez flied out to center field, Manny Machado singled through the left side to score Wade.

Wade was again in the center of the Padres scoring in the seventh inning, walking to start the inning and scoring from first base on Machado’s two-out single.

With Jason Adam having pitched the previous two nights, Wandy Peralta was brought in for the eighth and surrendered a home run to Pete Crow-Armstrong on his second pitch. Two quick out followed before Ian Happ lined a single to left field. Perlata then ended the threat by striking out Kyle Tucker.

That also brought to an end what had been Tucker’s major league-leading 19-game on-base streak, leaving Tatis’ 18-game streak with that distinction.

The Padres got the run back and gave a two-run cushion on Suarez by drawing four bases on balls off Luke Little – a lead-off walk by Jason Heyward, a one-out walk by Gavin Sheets and successive two-out walks by Wade and Tatis — in the eighth.

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