One Run in 18 Innings: How the Cubs' 89-Win Season Ended in San Diego

The Chicago Cubs spent six months building one of the most complete offensive profiles in the National League. It took them about six hours in San Diego to watch it disappear.

San Diego swept the Cubs out of the Wild Card Series, 8-0 in Game 1 and 4-1 in Game 2. That's one run across 18 innings, in a ballpark where the Cubs had won five of eight regular-season meetings and outscored the Padres 56-40 overall. The same team that dropped a 23-3 hammer on San Diego at Wrigley Field on July 1 went quietly in the biggest game of its season.

The culprits were the two hitters the lineup was built around. Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman combined to go 0-for-15 with a walk and eight strikeouts over the two games. That's a brutal coda to a spectacular season for Crow-Armstrong, who hit .280 with 45 home runs, 107 RBI, 41 stolen bases and a .942 OPS across 162 games — a legitimate MVP-caliber line. Bregman, who served as designated hitter in Game 1 while the club played it safe with him, finished the year at .265 with 28 homers and a .819 OPS.

Cubs pitchers, meanwhile, were ambushed early. Matthew Boyd, who posted a 3.91 ERA and 1.21 WHIP in 22 starts, took the Game 1 loss behind Michael King's dominance. Kevin Gausman, a 177-inning workhorse at a 4.51 ERA, couldn't keep the season alive in Game 2. Sportsbooks closed the Padres as roughly -134 home favorites in that elimination game, and San Diego justified it inside the first few innings.

The Warning Signs Were There

This wasn't a sudden collapse so much as a slow leak. Over the final five games of the regular season, the Cubs posted a .200 win percentage with a .576 OPS, a .206 batting average and a 4.47 ERA. A team that finished with a plus-136 run differential and 229 home runs limped into October with a lineup that couldn't produce a crooked number.

The organizational issue is pitching depth, and it's not subtle. Nine Cubs are parked on the 60-day injured list, including Justin Steele, Cade Horton, Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey, Porter Hodge, Shelby Miller and Ben Brown. Chicago's bullpen limped to a 4.50 ERA and a 1.426 WHIP with 12 blown saves — numbers that turn a good rotation into a fragile roster. The staff's overall 4.20 ERA and 1.30 WHIP look respectable in isolation, but compare them with Milwaukee, the team that ran away with the division at 103-59: Brewers 3.41 ERA, 1.121 WHIP, 7.96 strikeouts per nine. The Cubs posted a 6.68 K/9. That gap is the season in miniature.

What It Means for 2027

The fallout arrived immediately. The sweep drew comparisons to the 2007 and 2008 clubs — regular-season success followed by postseason humiliation — and the refrain from the Chicago beat was that a memorable summer now counts as a failure. Bregman's public assessment of the team was notably blunt, framed as a wake-up call for the front office.

The to-do list writes itself: find strikeout arms, rebuild a bullpen that can hold a lead in October, and decide whether Crow-Armstrong and Bregman can be the guys who carry a lineup when the games tighten up. Chicago already showed a willingness to trade from the top of its prospect list last deadline for a starter, a reliever and a fourth outfielder. Expect more of the same aggression this winter — with the added complication that a labor stoppage could arrive as early as December 1, compressing the entire offseason into a handful of weeks.

The Cubs won 89 games and earned the right to be taken seriously. The next 12 months will determine whether that was a foundation or a ceiling.