Michael King gave San Diego six innings to imagine a no-hitter and seven innings of something more useful: control of a short series. King allowed one hit, walked three and struck out eight Tuesday as the Padres opened the National League Wild Card round with an 8-0 win over the Chicago Cubs at Petco Park.
Fernando Tatis Jr. put the first pitch he saw from Matthew Boyd over the center-field wall. Manny Machado followed with another solo homer in the same inning. MLB's game story identified them as the first Padres teammates to combine for multiple first-inning home runs in a postseason game. The two swings changed the shape of the night before Chicago recorded an out in the bottom half.
King protected the lead without pitching around contact. He struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong to start the game, stranded a runner in each of the second, third, fourth and sixth innings, and kept Chicago hitless through six. Tatis helped in the fourth with a running catch on Ian Happ. The Cubs had traffic but no hit and no scoreboard pressure.
San Diego kept adding. Machado doubled home Tatis in the third, and Xander Bogaerts homered in the fourth. In the fifth, Jackson Merrill's ground-ball single to right scored Luis Campusano and Machado. Ty France came home on a passed ball during Austin Hays' plate appearance, pushing the margin to 7-0.
Nico Hoerner ended the no-hit bid with a seventh-inning single. King finished the frame and left after 97 pitches, eight strikeouts and one hit allowed. Yuki Matsui worked a clean eighth. Joe Musgrove gave up two ninth-inning singles and a walk but struck out two, including Michael Conforto for the final out, to preserve the shutout.
The offense finished with 13 hits. Tatis went 2-for-3 with three runs, a walk and an RBI. Machado was 2-for-3 with a double, a homer, two runs and two RBIs. Merrill added two hits and two RBIs, while Bogaerts and France each had two hits. San Diego scored in five separate innings and never needed one oversized rally.
That matters in a best-of-three series. The Game 1 winner needs one more victory, while the Cubs now have no margin for another quiet start. San Diego did not have to use its highest-leverage relievers in a close finish, and King's seven innings reduced the number of outs the bullpen had to absorb. The advantage is real but not transferable; Wednesday begins at 0-0.
Boyd took the loss after San Diego reached him for the three early home runs and Machado's double. The Padres then continued against the Chicago bullpen, scoring three in the fifth and another in the seventh on a throwing error. That separation mattered tactically: manager Craig Stammen could finish with Matsui and Musgrove instead of turning the game into a parade of one-inning matchup relievers.
A crowd of 47,084 saw the Padres pair power with an overpowering start. Tatis and Machado supplied the flash. King supplied the sequence that decided the game: six hitless innings, one single, then three more outs before the ball changed hands. San Diego enters Game 2 with the series lead because its ace never let Chicago turn baserunners into a threat.