Cubs ride back-to-back homers to a 3-1 win over Padres in their return to postseason

Meghan Montemurro, Chicago Tribune on Sep 30, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CHICAGO — Two days before his first Major League Baseball playoff game, Seiya Suzuki tried to envision what the experience and environment might entail.

Suzuki hadn’t asked any of his 14 Chicago Cubs teammates who previously played in a postseason to describe it. Instead, Suzuki found a YouTube video of Cubs fans’ filmed live reactions to big playoff moments. Throughout this season, Suzuki would pull up the montage when he needed a pick-me-up or a reminder of his and the team’s goal.

That was on his mind before Game 1 of the wild-card series Tuesday against the San Diego Padres.

“I was really moved by it, just watching the games, watching the fans, how much passion they have, how much support they have with the team,” Suzuki said Sunday through interpreter Edwin Stanberry. ” In the regular season you try to almost kill your emotions a little bit, but with the postseason it’s a different animal where I’m looking forward to what kind of player I’m going to be, and I’m looking forward to playing for the fans.”

Suzuki jolted the 39,114 fans onto their feet at Wrigley Field with a 112.2 mph laser off Padres starter Nick Pivetta into the bleachers to tie the score in the fifth inning. Moments later, catcher Carson Kelly, in his first postseason game, took Pivetta deep to left-center field to put the Cubs ahead on back-to-back homers.

The bullpen followed with 4 2/3 perfect innings for a 3-1 victory in the best-of-three series — the Cubs’ first playoff win since 2017 and their first postseason game since 2020. Nico Hoerner’s sacrifice fly in the eighth provided a late insurance run.

Suzuki and Kelly became the fourth duo to hit back-to-back home runs in Cubs postseason history, the first since Miguel Montero and Dexter Kelly in Game 1 of the 2016 National League Championship Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Suzuki’s sizzling stretch to end the regular season carried over to the postseason, at least for Tuesday. He tallied six homers in his last 15 at-bats, including homering in four consecutive games to end the regular season. Only three other major-league players have entered the playoffs on a four-game home-run streak: Ryan Howard in 2007, George Brett in 1985 and Mike Schmidt in 1980.

Pivetta kept the Cubs lineup quiet through the first four innings, holding them to a single while striking out six.

Cubs left-hander Matthew Boyd allowed one run and four hits in 4 1/3 innings. The veteran worked around a couple of dangerous moment to keep it a one-run game.

He stranded Xander Bogaerts at third with nobody out in the second after consecutive doubles by Jackson Merrill and Bogaerts for an early Padres lead.

Boyd again faced a challenging moment in the fourth after a leadoff walk to Manny Machado, who advanced to second on Merrill’s sacrifice bunt. Bogaerts’ infield single put runners on the corners, but Dansby Swanson provided a game-changing catch in shallow center for the second out to keep the runners in place.

Boyd got out of the jam, and the bullpen did the rest to capture the often series-defining Game 1 win.

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