SAN DIEGO — The Cubs’ season is over, ending with a two-game thud.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end, certainly not this early, not this quickly.
But the World Series hopes the Cubs held since the spring were officially dashed Wednesday night in Southern California, the team looking far from championship-caliber for a second straight game as they were swept out of the playoffs with a 4-1 loss to the Padres.
The Padres came into the series red hot. The Cubs didn’t, losers of four of their final six games in the regular season and struggling to score in the cold, windy conditions at Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.
A scene change to the picture-perfect weather of San Diego didn’t do anything to awaken their bats, though, and a night after they were shut out — with Padres starter Michael King taking a no-hit bid into the seventh inning — they were mostly kept off home plate again, limited to just five hits after mustering only three in Game 1.
All told, the regular season’s highest-scoring team scored just 16 runs in the last eight games it played in 2026.
Though the offensive troubles were undoubtedly a team-wide issue, it was hard to escape the failings of the Cubs’ two best hitters, Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alex Bregman, who were hitless in the two-game series, going 0-for-15 and striking out eight times.
That obviously paled in comparison to what the Padres’ dynamic duo of Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado did in Game 1, each homering off lefty Matthew Boyd in the first inning of that contest and scoring five of their team’s eight runs.
The Cubs tabbed righty Kevin Gausman with their season on the line Wednesday, to little better result. Bothered by a balky left shoulder the last week, he lasted 3⅓ innings, giving up a pair of runs after allowing three hits to start the bottom of the second inning.
But the biggest blow came right after he exited in the fourth, chased by a one-out double. Righty reliever Daniel Palencia — who didn’t allow a run in his last eight appearances in the regular season — followed up a strikeout by giving up a two-out, two-run homer to pinch-hitter Gavin Sheets that sent Petco Park into a frenzy.
The Cubs’ lineup — which squandered a couple early chances, stranding five runners in the third and fourth innings — was even quieter from there against the Padres’ mighty bullpen, putting just three men on base in the final five innings.
And that was that, a season in the books without much resistance to a San Diego steamroller that looks like the sort of championship-capable team the Cubs believed they were all summer long.
The numbers said they were, too. They led the majors in runs scored. They had, far and away, the best defense in the sport. And Crow-Armstrong, the presumptive MVP, had an all-time campaign, joining baseball’s exclusive 40-40 club and playing Gold Glove defense in center field.
But the Cubs picked the wrong time to go into hibernation, what they hoped would be a run deep into October not even reaching that month on the calendar.
Last season’s playoff exit, in the NLDS at the hands of the rival Brewers, struck as an early one. But by comparison, it was a lengthy stay.
After losing the division race to the Brewers last year by five games, they finished a whopping 14 games behind their rivals this year. After beating these Padres in the opening playoff round in 2025 and taking the Brewers to five games, they managed to appear in only two postseason bouts in 2026, losing both.
Inarguably, a disappointing step backward for an organization with big expectations and little playoff success to show for them.