Chicago Cubs at San Diego Padres: Final Score & Recap

The Chicago Cubs handed the San Diego Padres a 2-1 defeat at Petco Park on June 2, 2023, overcoming a pre-game DiamondIQ model estimate that gave the home side a 55 percent chance of winning. The Cubs scratched out their two runs in the third and fifth innings, the latter coming on a Dansby Swanson home run off Michael Wacha that shifted win probability 11.8 percent in Chicago's favor. San Diego answered with a single run in the sixth, and the game tightened considerably in the eighth when Rougned Odor's single off Julian Merryweather moved the needle 13.4 percent toward the Padres. However, Adbert Alzolay immediately steadied matters, retiring Fernando Tatis Jr. on a strikeout that swung win probability 19.9 percent back toward the Cubs, then inducing Xander Bogaerts into a double play that shifted another 22.2 percent in Chicago's direction, effectively extinguishing San Diego's most credible threat of the night.

Mark Leiter Jr. closed it out in the ninth, getting Jake Cronenworth to strike out for the game's single largest win-probability swing, a 31.6 percent move that sealed the outcome. Alzolay was the pitching story of the evening, finishing as the game's top performer by WPA at plus-42.1 percent across his dominant eighth-inning work, while Jameson Taillon contributed plus-15.8 percent and Steven Wilson added plus-10.4 percent in support. Among position players, Cronenworth led all batters at plus-22.7 percent WPA despite a negative RE24, while Swanson at plus-20.7 percent and Odor at plus-20.4 percent rounded out the most impactful performances, the latter two generating positive run-environment contributions of plus-1.5 and plus-1.1 respectively. The DiamondIQ model's estimate moved from that 55 percent pre-game Padres lean all the way to zero, a clean reflection of how thoroughly Chicago's pitching staff controlled the final three innings.