San Diego Padres vs Chicago Cubs Prediction, Odds and Picks for Today, 09/30/25

The San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs kick off their best-of-3 NL Wild Card Series on Tuesday afternoon on the north side at Wrigley Field. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen these 2 go head-to-head, as the teams met for 3 in Wrigley April 4-6 — with the Cubs winning twice. The Padres took 2 of 3 at Petco Park in San Diego April 14-16. So, yeah, the teams tied 3-3 in the season series — so not much to glean there. RHP Nick Pivetta was 1-1 with a 4.00 ERA in two starts against the Padres this season, while LHP Matthew Boyd was, yep, 1-1 with a 1.59 ERA against the Padres in 2 outings.

Let’s dig a little deeper to determine a winner. The public seems to be siding with the Padres ever so slightly, but that’s possibly a mistake. Boyd struggled down the stretch, going 2-1 with a 5.47 ERA across his final 5 starts with teams hitting .267 against him. He allowed 4 homers in that span, too. But he was an amazing 12-1 with a 2.51 ERA in 15 starts across 89.2 innings at Wrigley Field this season, with an opponent average of just .209. Pivetta was just 5-4 with a 3.55 ERA across 78.2 innings in 14 road outings and he served up 13 homers in that span. In his final 2 starts he conceded 6 runs across 10.1 innings with a 5.23 ERA, although he had no decisions. The lean is to Boyd and the Cubs.

Padres vs Cubs prediction: Chicago ML (-115) available at time of publishing. Playable to -120.

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