SAN DIEGO — Amid the red-rimmed eyes, handshakes and hugs in a somber visitors clubhouse, a couple of blue “No Time Like October” sweatshirts sat discarded in a trash can.
Just as the clock hit midnight in Chicago to ring in October, the Cubs’ 2026 season ended with a dud. After a year defined by extreme highs and lows, the Cubs played from behind in all but one inning and were swept in a best-of-three National League wild-card series against the San Diego Padres with a 4-1 loss Wednesday night at Petco Park.
Four Cubs pitchers — Kevin Gausman, Daniel Palencia, David Peterson and Ryan Zeferjahn — kept the Padres in check enough to give the offense a chance. This team was built around offense and defense, and the bats never came alive in a disappointing performance, managing just one run and eight hits over the series’ 18 innings.
Gausman, who pitched through a bothersome left shoulder, wasn’t satisfied with his performance (three runs in 3 1/3 innings), especially his inability to prevent the Padres from creating early momentum by taking a lead in the second.
“I really wish I could have been 100% and gone out there with a little bit more,” he said. “But I had what I had and tried to give it everything I had. … It’s tough.
“Anytime you get swept in the postseason, it’s not fun. It’s always going to leave a sour taste in your mouth.”
October baseball commences without Major League Baseball’s best offense in the regular season.
The Cubs’ offensive futility started at the top with their best two hitters. Pete Crow-Armstrong, looking to deliver a better postseason performance than a year ago, and Alex Bregman, playing despite multiple facial fractures, combined to go 0-for-15 with eight strikeouts and one walk in the two games.
“Horrible,” Bregman said. “The goal is to win and we didn’t play well enough to do that. So it’s time to look in the mirror and get better, and I know myself and a lot of these guys will be thinking about it every day of the offseason and let it fuel us.
“Just not good enough. Need to get better in all areas.”
Crow-Armstrong assessed his two-game performance bluntly.
“You could look at the scoreboard, you could look at the stat sheet, wherever you get your numbers from, and it is clear to see that I didn’t contribute,” he said.
The depth of the lineup, a strength in the regular season, yielded little. Only four players had a hit in the two-game sweep: Nico Hoerner (four), Seiya Suzuki (two), Tyrone Taylor (one) and Carson Kelly (one). Hoerner’s one-out double in the ninth Wednesday represented the Cubs’ only extra-base hit of the series.
The Cubs produced the lowest slugging percentage (.145) in a multigame postseason series in MLB history, according to OptaSTATS, surpassing the 2020 Minnesota Twins (.153, AL wild card), 2022 Tampa Bay Rays (.154, AL wild card), 1998 Texas Rangers (.174, ALDS) and 2019 St. Louis Cardinals (.179, NLCS).
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The woes at the plate became a recipe for postseason disaster.
“When you’re in this position, you’re going to be disappointed,” manager Craig Counsell said. “You’re going to feel unfulfilled. That’s just dominating everything you feel right now. Maybe as you reflect, I think I can get to some better places. Right now that’s all I feel.”
Hoerner’s single up the middle in the fourth produced the Cubs’ lone run of the series. Dansby Swanson had a particularly rough night at the plate. Twice he was at the center of wasted scoring opportunities.
With two on and nobody out in the third against Padres starter Nick Pivetta, Swanson worked a 3-0 count before striking out on a fastball near his ankles. Crow-Armstrong then popped out and Bregman flied out to end the inning.
The big moment found Swanson again in the fourth. Reliever Bradgley Rodríguez hit Kelly to load the bases, but Swanson flied out on the right-hander’s first pitch, a 99.3 mph fastball up and in.
The Cubs finished 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left six runners on base.
“We had a great lineup,” Hoerner said. “I think we were prepared — that’s kind of the harsh reality of a three-game series to end a season. I’m sure there was plenty of two-game stretches during the season we didn’t produce, and they executed at a really high level.”
Gavin Sheets’ pinch-hit, two-run home run off Palencia, with the Padres faithful chanting, “Holy Sheets!” as the at-bat began, provided the big blow in the fourth, minutes after Hoerner had pulled the Cubs within a run.
For a team that touted its veteran experience all year, especially heading into the postseason, the Cubs ultimately failed to rise to the moment. They will be left to wonder if the series would have played out differently had they not squandered home-field advantage in the final week of the regular season after going 4-1 at Wrigley Field during the 2025 playoffs.
“Ends never get easier if it doesn’t end in a celebration in the World Series,” Swanson said. “You spend so much time together. You spend countless hours together, days together, flights together. I mean, you’re with each other more than your own family, wife, kids, and you come together for a bigger purpose. That’s one thing that I’ve always appreciated and loved so much about the groups that have been here is the selfless buy-in from everyone on the team to achieve something.
“When you come up short, it really stings. It’s not fun being on this side for sure.”
The elimination situation is a position Counsell is familiar with. Wednesday’s game represented his 20th in the postseason as a manager.
“You’ve got to get to the tournament; we’ve done it the last couple of years,” Counsell said. “We keep giving ourselves cracks at it, and that’s what we’re going to keep trying to do and you’ve got to try to keep getting a little bit better.
“You learn from what’s happened. You’ve got to have some fortune on your side with the healthier players, and we can absolutely get there.”
The Cubs, though, never seemed to settle in during the series. The majors’ No. 1 offense in both runs and home runs didn’t put much pressure on the Padres.
One of the better teams in the regular season with their hitters’ use of the ABS system, the Cubs weren’t as judicious on a night when the slimmest of margins could determine whether their season ended or continued.
Crow-Armstrong challenged a strike-three call to lead off the first, and replay showed nearly half the ball inside the zone. Then the Cubs lost their second challenge when Kelly tapped his helmet behind the plate for a review with nobody on in the third for a would-be 3-2 count to Fernando Tatís Jr.
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The Cubs head into an offseason full of uncertainty. Beyond the looming lockout, they have questions to solve, particularly surrounding a pitching staff that was decimated by injuries and how to build a roster that can go deeper in the playoffs after falling short of expectations two consecutive years.
The reality of the Cubs’ circumstances was impossible to ignore after Wednesday’s loss.
As Counsell made the walk back from the news conference room to the visitors clubhouse, a thumping bass emitted from the San Diego clubhouse as he passed. A champagne-soaked Padres coach stood outside the clubhouse doors, preparing to re-enter with a beer bottle in hand, goggles on his head and a sprawling grin across his face, steps away from a throng of Padres players’ and staff’s families humming in excitement.
“You’ve got to take your losses,” Counsell said. “We lost. There’s a response to it that we get to choose, and we’ve got to improve. Everybody can point at themselves and say we’ve got to get a little bit better. Then we get to choose how we respond to it.”