Cubs and Padres Open NL Wild Card Series Tonight, Betting Markets Split Nearly 50-50

Game 1 Tips Off Tonight at Petco Park

The Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres are scheduled to open their best-of-three NL Wild Card series tonight, with first pitch set for 10 p.m. ET at Petco Park, according to Hard Rock Bet and sportsbookreview. San Diego earned home-field advantage as the No. 4 seed after closing the regular season at 91-71. Chicago finished 89-63, according to the NY Post.

DraftKings Sportsbook lists the Padres as roughly a -120 to -131 favorite depending on the book, with the Cubs sitting near +108, according to the NY Post and sportsbookreview. That is about as close as playoff odds get. The total is set around 7 to 7.5 runs across most books.

The Head-to-Head Numbers Say Cubs, The Recent Form Says Padres

Chicago won five of six meetings against San Diego this season and outscored the Padres 55-28, including a 23-3 blowout on July 1 that stood as the most lopsided score either team posted all year, according to Bettors Insider. But every one of those games came in the first half of the season.

Since then, the Padres have been the best team in baseball. San Diego went 41-18 from July 24 through the end of the regular season, the best record in the majors over that stretch and tied for the best 59-game span in franchise history, per sportsbookreview. The Padres also went 35-17 over the final two months, with an offense that Fox Sports says flipped from worst in baseball at the All-Star break to one of the best in the second half. San Diego closed the year winning 17 of its last 20 games, including back-to-back wins over Arizona to finish, according to Hard Rock Bet.

"Honestly, you probably look at that part of the season as probably the lowest of lows for us," Padres second baseman Jake Cronenworth said of the early-season series against Chicago, according to Sports Illustrated. "It's right in the middle of an eight-game losing streak."

Revenge Narrative and the Starting Pitchers

San Diego is also looking to avenge last year's wild card series, when the Cubs eliminated the Padres. "Obviously that stung last year for us," Padres veteran Manny Machado said Monday, per Sports Illustrated. "This year's going to be a little bit different. Hopefully we go out there and take care of business."

Michael King gets the ball for San Diego. He finished 12-10 with a 3.21 ERA, a 1.18 WHIP and 159 strikeouts across 185 innings, an ace-level workload for the Padres, according to Bettors Insider. King did allow five earned runs in his final regular-season start, a loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on Sept. 22, per Hard Rock Bet. "We are a totally different team," King said of this year's matchup with Chicago, according to Sports Illustrated.

Matthew Boyd takes the mound for Chicago. He went 10-5 with a 3.91 ERA and a 1.21 WHIP over 126.2 innings, solid but the shakier of the two starters on paper, per Bettors Insider. Chicago announced Boyd as the Game 1 starter late Monday while the team continues evaluating Kevin Gausman's health, according to sportsbookreview.

The Stars Everyone's Watching

Chicago's case rests heavily on center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, the favorite for NL MVP after a 45-home run, 107-RBI, 41-stolen-base season that made him the seventh player in MLB history to join the 40-40 club, according to Hard Rock Bet. Alex Bregman, in the second year of a five-year, $175 million deal, posted a 1.010 OPS in the second half and went 4-for-4 with two homers in the regular-season finale, days after taking a foul ball off the face, per Fox Sports.

San Diego counters with Fernando Tatis Jr., who hit 25 homers over his final 104 games after starting the year homerless through 55 games, and Jackson Merrill, forming the only 25-25 teammate pair in the majors this season, according to Fox Sports. The Padres also lean on closer Mason Miller and what Fox Sports calls the most intimidating bullpen in baseball, plus 20-year-old catcher Ethan Salas, who is set to become the youngest player ever to appear in a postseason game at that position.

Where the Bets and Predictions Split

The handicappers don't agree. The NY Post is backing the Over 7.5 runs, arguing neither King nor Boyd will dominate a lineup built to work counts and hit for power. Covers likes King to go Over 4.5 strikeouts given his four five-strikeout outings in his last six starts, but also likes Tatis Jr. and Crow-Armstrong to hit their prop overs. Sportsbookreview's Mike Spector is picking Chicago to win outright, pointing to the season series and Chicago's edge in runs per game among playoff teams. Fox Sports predicts the Padres will advance, citing the two best offenses in baseball since the break and home-field advantage, where San Diego went 51-30 this season.

None of it settles anything until the first pitch tonight. Whichever team wins Game 1 will need one more victory to close out the best-of-three series and advance to face Milwaukee in the NLDS, according to Hard Rock Bet.