CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – APRIL 05: Wandy Peralta #58 of the San Diego Padres catches a fly ball as he collides with Jose Iglesias #7 during the eighth inning against the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on April 05, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Justin Casterline/Getty Images)
During their season-opening 7-game winning streak, the Padres played extremely clean baseball, committing just one error while their pitchers issued a respectable 21 walks in 63.0 innings.
Getting away from Petco Park, however, has led to a little big of sloppiness. In two games at Wrigley Field, the Friars have already committed three errors while walking 15 in 16.0 innings. Not surprisingly, both of those games have been losses.
San Diego fell 7-1 on a rough Saturday at the Friendly Confines, their second straight loss and ... not to let the offense off the hook here ... their second straight day of scoring just one run.
Starter Nick Pivetta was fantastic in his first start, going 7.0 shutout innings without walking a single hitter. Maybe the mound at Wrigley Field is a little wonky. Pivetta only lasted 3.0 innings and needed a whopping 76 pitches to do it. In the 2nd inning he walked Kyle Tucker with the bases loaded to bring in a run, the second straight day a Padres pitcher has done that. Pivetta issued three free passes and gave up a solo homer to Dansby Swanson, leaving with his team in a 3-0 hole.
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Omar Cruz followed with 2.2 innings where he walked three and allowed two runs and Alek Jacob came on to throw 1.1 innings, walking a pair and allowing a home run to Carson Kelly that ran the lead to 7-0. Meanwhile, the Padres offense was not its usual pesky self. They put runners on base in six different innings but couldn't figure out how to string enough hits together to establish a rally until the 7th inning.
With two outs Brandon Lockridge and Elias Diaz singled, then Fernando Tatis Jr. followed with a single to score Lockridge for their only run of the day. San Diego tries to avoid the sweep on Sunday when lefty Kyle Hart takes the mound against Chicago righty Ben Brown.
