Cubs edge Padres to win game, series

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Jun 30, 2026

Published in Baseball

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CHICAGO — Fernando Tatis Jr. turned on the fifth pitch of the game and watched it for just a moment.

That was more time than it took to know the ball would reach the bleachers. Tatis was halfway to first base when his home run cleared the back fence and fell onto Waveland Avenue.

The wind that a night earlier carried a couple fateful fly balls to the wall but did not sweep any over Wrigley Field’s famous ivy would not be denied on Tuesday in a game that began and ended with a flurry of home runs.

The Padres and Cubs homered twice apiece in the first three innings. The Cubs added a couple more in the fifth inning and another in the sixth to build a six-run lead. The Padres hit two in the eighth inning to get within two runs.

The Cubs escaped with a 9-7 victory that clinched their second series win over the Padres, who have lost four straight.

The Padres had a chance to tie the game in the eighth inning after Samad Taylor followed Tatis’ second homer with a walk to bring Manny Machado to the plate with two outs in the eighth.

The Cubs replaced Javier Assad with Tyler Ferguson, who struck out Machado on five pitches.

Ferguson also got the first two outs of the ninth before Ryan Rollison got Jackson Merrill to fly out to finish off the Cubs’ fifth victory in five games against the Padres this season.

Machado had homered earlier, to right field on a fly ball to the basket that hangs over the outfield wall. That was one of three home runs — along with Tatis’ second homer, also to the basket, and one by Pete Crow-Armstrong — that had the wind to thank.

Otherwise, the wind mostly helped a bunch of balls travel farther — 425 feet for Tatis, 414 for Sheets, 432 and 437 for Dansby Swanson, 424 for Michael Busch and 415 for Alex Bregman.

The Cubs’ five homers — three off JP Sears and two against Ron Marinaccio — were the most hit against the Padres this season.

But the roots of the loss went deeper than the long ball.

Matthew Boyd threw strikes, and the Cubs played good defense.

Sears did not, and the Padres did not. They also failed to get runners home from scoring position.

The Cubs tied the game in the bottom of the first without hitting a homer and by getting just one single.

After Sears walked Bregman with one out, he got a routine grounder to third base from Seiya Suzuki that appeared would be an inning-ending double play but instead led to an inning-extending and costly error.

Machado’s throw to second base was off-target, and Tatis had to step up to catch it. Tatis had to alter his throwing stance and hurry the throw, which sailed high and wide and off the roof of the Padres’ dugout.

That put Suzuki on second base, and one pitch later he was racing home to tie the game on a single by Carson Kelly.

In the top of the second, after Ty France’s leadoff single, Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner made a diving grab to his right on a hard grounder up the middle by Merrill that turned into a fielder’s choice, and Boyd got out of the inning with two more ground balls.

Sears, who threw 13 pitches after the squandered double-play opportunity, got the first out in the second inning before essentially alternating between throwing balls outside the strike zone and in the middle of the strike zone.

Swanson’s solo home run put the Cubs up 2-1, and Bregman followed a walk and a single with a three-run homer before Sears got out of the inning.

Machado’s two-out home run drove in Freddy Fermin, who led off the third with a double, to get the Padres to 5-3.

They would get two runners on before making an out in the sixth, two on with two outs in the seventh and fail to score again before Sheet’s three-run blast with one out in the eighth.

Sears began the third inning having thrown 58 pitches, half of them balls. He allowed a single to Hoerner and then retired seven straight before Busch’s homer with one out in the fifth.

Marinaccio replaced Sears with two outs and a man on and immediately surrendered Swanson’s second homer, which made it 8-3.

Crow-Armstrong led off the sixth with his homer.