{"id":477143,"date":"2026-09-27T05:14:29","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:14:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/477143\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T05:14:29","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T05:14:29","slug":"cubs-wild-card-matchup-set-its-a-best-of-three-series-against-padres-in-san-diego","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/477143\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs\u2019 wild-card matchup set: It\u2019s a best-of-three series against Padres in San Diego"},"content":{"rendered":"

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Cubs<\/a> finally know which team they\u2019ll play in their National League wild-card series and where the games will be held.<\/p>\n

The Padres defeated the Diamondbacks late Saturday to clinch the top wild-card spot (No. 4 seed) in the NL playoffs. Coupled with the Phillies\u2019 loss to the Rays, that locked the Cubs into the second wild-card spot (No. 5 seed), sending them to San Diego for a best-of-three series starting Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Cubs held the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Padres but won\u2019t be able to catch them now. They are two games behind them in the standings with one game left in the regular season: a weather-shifted matchup against the Red Sox on Sunday in St. Petersburg.<\/p>\n

The Cubs hold the tiebreaker with the Phillies, so even though the teams could finish with the same record, the Cubs have clinched the No. 5 seed. The Phillies still aren\u2019t assured of a playoff spot. The Diamondbacks could catch them with a victory Sunday against the Padres should the Phillies lose again and would get in as the No. 6 seed, courtesy of a tiebreaker.<\/p>\n

The Cubs will have no seeding or potential home-field advantage to play for Sunday and can start drawing up plans for their series against the Padres, the same team they faced \u2014 and defeated \u2014 in the wild-card round a season ago. That series, however, was played at Wrigley Field.<\/p>\n

The Cubs won five of the six games they played against the Padres during the regular season, including a 23-3 blowout victory in the most recent meeting that saw them hit a record-setting eight home runs<\/a>, including three by Dansby Swanson, who drove in eight runs by himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. \u2014 The Cubs finally know which team they\u2019ll play in their National League wild-card series…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-477143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}