Padres Bats Predictably Quiet in Wild Card Opener vs. Cubs

The San Diego Padres dropped Game 1 of their wild card series against the Chicago Cubs in a fashion that was likely visible from a mile away. With the 3-1 loss, the team now sits one loss away from heading home for the winter. It's a narrow margin of error, but such is the life of a wild card ballclub.

Of course, some semblance of offensive production would help them avoid such a scenario.

Despite a quick hook, Boyd tossed 4 1/3 innings and allowed just four hits and a walk against a San Diego lineup that deployed five left-handed hitters. Jackson Merrill was the only one of that group to record a hit against Boyd, as the others went a combined 0-for-13 with a pair of strikeouts over the course of their nine innings. But it's not as if the right-handed hitters had that much more to offer. 

Fernando Tatis Jr was 0-for-4. As was Manny Machado. Freddy Fermin offered a 1-for-3 performance out of the No. 9 spot in the lineup. The only hitter to produce much of anything was Xander Bogaerts, as he went 2-for-4 in a line that included the double that scored Merrill in the second inning. Outside of back-to-back doubles to start off that frame, the Padres were unable to break through against lefty starter Matthew Boyd. They left four hitters on and were 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position, including stranding Bogaerts on third base with no outs in the fifth.

Which is why when the Cubs hit back-to-back solo home runs in the fifth inning, the win expectancy fell heavily in their favor: 

A 71.3 percent win expectancy with a one-run lead in the fifth inning, regardless of the factors that created it, speaks heavily to the pessimism surrounding this Padres offense overcoming even the narrowest of margins. This, quite obviously, represents fears about this lineup coming to fruition on a couple of different levels.

The first fear was whether the Padres could manage to break through against either of the left-handed starters the Cubs planned to roll out to start each of the series' first two games. Earlier this week, we examined whether there was any hope for them to accomplish such a feat. The conclusion that we did reach was that it would be easier to do so against Shota Imanaga than it would against Boyd. While that scenario remains in play, the margin for error no longer exists given the poor output on Tuesday afternoon. In addition to the fact that the Cubs are, instead, turning to Andrew Kittredge as an opener, with Imanaga now only potentially working as a bulk arm.

Ultimately, though, Game 1 did speak to the larger fears about this Padres lineup as a collective. Despite a more stable stretch of winning baseball in the second half than we'd become accustomed to seeing from May to July, the offense has not (at any point) been the driver of their success. That credit goes to the pitching, which did the work they needed to do in allowing just three runs to a Cubs team that has been hot of late on that side of the ball. 

This is a streaky group. Tatis, Machado, Merrill, and even Bogaerts have turned in absolutely torrid stretches of play this year. But, they've been confined to specific areas of the calendar. While some of that is the nature of baseball, it's also appeared to be much more exaggerated with this lineup. Getting sustained offensive production within the confines of a short series was always going to be a tough ask. But now Padres fans are asking for it. 

Not only do the Padres need to drum up offense against an opener and (we assume) another left-handed starter—albeit one of slightly lower quality on the stat sheet than Boyd—they'll need Dylan Cease to efficiently navigate that nonexistent margin for error. That can't be a great feeling heading into Game 2.