To put it simply and bluntly, Cubs manager Craig Counsell’s pitching strategy for Game 2 didn’t work. Whether he was falling victim to getting too finicky about winning a decisive game or employing a perfectly reasonable plan that fell through, the result was a 3-0 loss on Wednesday that will force a Game 3 against the Padres.
Instead of using Shota Imanaga as a true starter, Counsell went with Andrew Kittredge in the first inning as his opener. The idea was to avoid Imanaga — who has been prone to giving up the longball quite a lot lately, to the tune of 10 September home runs — having to face the top of the Padres order more than once.
That idea sounded reasonable going into the game, and Counsell has successfully used openers at least a few times during the 2025 regular season. But the plan failed in Game 2 of the wild card series.
Kittredge wasn’t terrible; he allowed just one run, but the expectation for an opener is that he keep the other team from doing any damage at all. Instead, Kittredge gave up back-to-back base hits to Fernando Tatis, Jr. and Luis Arraez that set up a sacrifice fly from Jackson Merrill to give the Padres a 1-0 first inning lead.
“I thought he threw the ball well. I thought they did a really good job in the first inning,” Counsell said. “The Tatís hit is a really good pitch. The Arráez hit is a really good pitch. He gets Machado out. He made good pitches. So like sometimes you get really good hitters and they get a hit. What are you going to do?
“[Kittredge] made the pitches that you’d want him to make in that inning, so I give them credit for putting together a good inning and having good at-bats.”
One run in the first inning shouldn’t have been insurmountable, even if it was disappointing. And for a while after Imanaga took over, it looked like the Padres’ lead would remain at one run. That’s the deficit the Cubs overcame with back-to-back fifth inning home runs in Game 1 on Tuesday, but in Game 2, it was the Padres who got the decisive homer.
In the Padres’ half of the fifth inning, Machado took Imanaga deep to left field for a two-run shot that put San Diego ahead by three runs. Imanaga had walked Tatis, Jr. two batters ahead of Machado, which of course begs the question whether Counsell should have lifted his pitcher sooner than he did.
“Look, the results suggest that we should have done something different,” Counsell said. “Really just confidence in Shota, plain and simple there. I thought he was pitching well. I thought he was throwing the ball really well, and unfortunately he made a mistake.”
The hindsight granted by Kittredge giving up a run in the first inning and Imanaga struggling against the three batters the Cubs tried to avoid him having to face makes all of Counsell’s decisions in Game 2 seem like the wrong ones. But if the same guy can pull all the right levers in Game 1 and string together the right mix of relievers to get 14 straight outs can also try a pitching strategy that collapses the next day, maybe it’s not the guy. Sometimes even a good plan fails.
And it would be wrong to ignore the flatness of the Cubs’ offense in Game 2 and simply chalk the loss up to an unsuccessful pitching strategy. Three runs were enough to win the game on Tuesday, but they couldn’t muster even one against Dylan Cease and the San Diego bullpen. They struck out 11 times in Game 2 after whiffing 13 times the previous day. That’s a problem.
Ian Happ struck out three times in Game 1 and twice more on Wednesday, and Pete Crow-Armstrong has looked mostly lost at the plate in both games. He struck out twice in Game 2 after going 0-for-3 with strikeouts on Tuesday.
“They obviously used their [best relievers], Morejon and Miller multiple innings and even Suarez multiple innings,” Counsell said. “So, look, those are good arms. That is what they’ve done to the league all year. Those are tough at-bats, plain and simple.”
Things won’t get a lot easier in Game 3, however. Yu Darvish is slated to start for the Padres, and even though he has not been his usual self this season, Darvish still averaged close to a strikeout per inning pitched in 2025. And it should be safe to assume that although the Padres’ best bullpen arms have been in play in both of the first two games of this wild card series, San Diego manager Mike Schildt isn’t going to hold back in a winner-take-all game on Thursday.
A win for the Cubs in Game 3 would mean they clinch a playoff series at Wrigley for just the third time in franchise history, and it would mean they advance to the division series against the Brewers. But getting there will almost certainly hinge on the offense, a group that managed to get enough runs to win the first game of this series, but still a group that has not looked particularly strong in either game against San Diego. Counsell will have to hope the Game 2 version of his offense isn’t what he gets on Thursday.
