Padres Starting Lineup for Wild-Card Game 1 vs Cubs Revealed

The San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs kick off their wild-card series on Tuesday night at Petco Park.

The Cubs dominated the Padres in the regular season, winning five of six games (including two of three at Petco Park). However, both those series came in the first half of the season, and the Padres turned their season around after the All-Star break.

The Padres are baseball's hottest team, winning 17 of their last 20 games before the postseason. The Cubs, on the other hand, are stumbling into the playoffs, having gone 9-11 over their final 20 games.

“Should be a great series,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “They’re a great team, they’ve got a lot of great players, a good coaching staff. It’ll be tightly contested. They’re the ones that knocked us out of the postseason last year. So we’re going to have to bring our ‘A’ game.”

Padres Wild-Card Roster

The Padres announced their wild-card roster on Tuesday morning with one big surprise: right-handed pitcher Joe Musgrove, who hasn't pitched since October 2024, is on it.

Musgrove is one of 11 pitchers on the roster. The 15 position players include Miguel Andujar, who's been on the IL since July 20.

Padres vs Cubs Pitching Matchup on Tuesday

Right-handed pitcher Michael King is taking the mound for the Padres on Tuesday night.

He was the ace of the Padres staff all year long, going 12-10 with a 3.21 ERA over 185 innings. He got better as the year went on, sporting a 2.93 ERA over 13 second-half starts.

"Really looking forward to it," King said of his Game 1 start on Monday. "I was able to make some good adjustments throughout the year, and I feel like we're in a pretty good spot coming into playoffs. ... Mechanically, I got pretty consistent, especially with the fastball delivery. I think that having that fastball delivery allowed it so then I could command both fastballs and then be able to expand the breaking balls off of that."

He had high praise for the Cubs lineup, which led all of baseball with 850 runs scored this season.

"Very professional lineup. Top-down, not a lot of chasers, a lot of guys stick to their approach," King said. "They don't come out of it based on sequences. Veteran guys, power guys, speed guys, contact guys — I think they were first in runs this year, and it shows."

Opposite King will be left-handed pitcher Matthew Boyd, who pitched Game 1 of last year's wild-card series for the Cubs. In that game, he allowed one run over 4.1 innings.

This year, Boyd went 10-5 with a 3.91 ERA across 22 starts and 126.2 innings. In two starts against San Diego this season, he allowed eight runs on 16 hits over nine innings.

Padres Starting Lineup

Fernando Tatis Jr., RF
Samad Taylor, LF
Manny Machado, 3B
Ty France, 1B
Jackson Merrill, CF
Austin Hays, DH
Xander Bogaerts, SS
Jake Cronenworth, 2B
Luis Campusano, C

"We're going to need contributions from everybody, not just the star players," Stammen said. "You never know who's going to come to the plate in a big moment and hopefully get a big hit for us."

How to Watch Padres vs Cubs Wild-Card Game 1 on Tuesday

First pitch for San Diego Padres vs. Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, Sept. 29 is 7 p.m. PT/10 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Peacock and NBCSN.

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