Padres will host Chicago Cubs in Wild Card Series with short but noteworthy history

When the doors swung open to the Padres clubhouse after their resounding 10-7 win over the D-backs on Saturday night at Petco Park, a raucous game of dominos was in progress among many of the team’s Latin players and Manny Machado was in the middle of it.

It should come as no surprise that the game of dominos was just as competitive as the game that had just ended on the field, and Machado was in the middle of that one, too.

His three-run homer with one out in the fourth inning down the line in right, the opposite field for the right-handed hitter, dug the Padres out of a 4-3 hole. It gave them the lead for good and ultimately home field advantage in their upcoming best-of-three Wild Card Series.

They open against the Cubs on Tuesday with staff ace Michael King on the mound. Major League Baseball announced the time of that game on Sunday: 7 p.m. PT, the latest of the four opening Wild Card Games. All three potential games at Petco Park are slated for the same time. A Chicago starter for Game 1 has yet to be tabbed.

It’s the first Padres home postseason games in two years and first under the new ownership of Jose E. Feliciano and Kwanza Jones. But the 44,698 in attendance were rocking on Saturday night. Expect it to step up to another level.

“It’s home, the guys bring it up during the season,” Machado said about their 22-year-old home field, where the Padres were 50-30 this season. “To come home and play just like we play in front of them, it’s always great. To open the postseason here and start a run at home it will definitely be exciting, that’s for sure.”

Machado collected his eighth season of 15 with 30 or more homers by hitting that clutch shot on Saturday night. It’s been a strange season for him at the plate. He’s struggled along hitting .216, but with the 30 homers and 90 runs batted in and a .710 OPS.

“Thirty is a big number,” Machado said. “It’s huge. But we want more than just that.”

The Padres have a short but illustrious playoff history with the Cubs.

Last year, they lost a three-game Wild Card Series to the Cubs at Wrigley Field that wasn’t as competitive as it sounded.

But in 1984, the teams played one of the classic National League Championship Series in history. There was no Wild Card back then, no division series. Clubs had to win their divisions to get in. The Padres were 92-70 to win the West, their best record in club history up until then and their first trip to the postseason. The Cubs hadn’t been in since losing the 1945 World Series to Detroit.

The Padres traveled to Wrigley for the opening two games and were walloped by a combined score of 17-2. It was the last year of the best-of-five LCS, and the Padres came home having to win all three games at their home at the time, Jack Murphy Stadium in Mission Valley. No one expected that to happen. But San Diego baseball fans came of age in that series and thousands turned up at the stadium when the downtrodden team came home that night on team busses after Game 2 in Chicago.

“We were all shocked,” Garry Templeton, the shortstop on that team recalled years later. “No question, it juiced us all up.”

With apologies to Petco Park, which can seat between 42,000 and 47,000 and is raucous as any ballpark in this era, The Murph (later known as Qualcomm Stadium) sat nearly 60,000 and was filled to the brim for each of the three games. The Padres, for this season-finale series have been passing out yellow towels to the fans to enhance the atmosphere.

“Home field advantage for us, that’s huge,” said Machado, who’s 34 and wasn’t born until 1992.

Imagine adding about 20,000 people to Petco. The Murph was a bowl built for football. The crowds during five postseason games in 1984 including the first two games of a five-game World Series loss to the Tigers were deafening. There was no need for enhancements.

“That’s damn sick,” Machado said. “I’m going to have to Google it and check that out.”

In 1984, Ed Whitson pitched a gem, and the Padres won Game 3, 7-1. Steve Garvey hit a walk-off homer against Lee Smith to win Game 4, 7-5. And the Padres came from behind to win Game 5, 6-3, when Tim Flannery’s grounder shot through first baseman Leon Durham’s legs and Tony Gwynn’s hopper bounced over second baseman Ryne Sandberg’s shoulder for a double.

Five guys in uniform for that series were eventually inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame: Sandberg and Smith for the Cubs, Gwynn, Goose Gossage and manager Dick Williams for the Padres.

What’s on the table for this year’s Padres is vanquishing last year’s loss to the Cubs, not genuflecting on some series that is part of baseball history. The Padres lost five of six regular season games to the Cubs this year, which all came during the first half when they were struggling.

“The Cubs are a great team,” said first year Padres manager Craig Stammen who was in the front office in 2025. “They kind of had their way with us when we went to Chicago this year. Played a couple close games here at home, but it should be a great series. It’ll be highly contested. They’re the ones that knocked us out of the playoffs last year, so we’ll have to bring our A-game.”

In baseball and in dominos.