The San Diego Padres defeated the Chicago Cubs 3-0 at Peoria Stadium on March 6, 2026, holding Chicago scoreless across all nine innings while collecting five hits against seven for the Cubs. The DiamondIQ model's estimate opened with San Diego as a modest 54 percent favorite and closed at 100 percent, reflecting a game that was largely decided by the third inning.
The decisive stretch came in the bottom of the third, where San Diego plated two runs against Cubs starter Ben Brown in a sequence that carried significant win-probability weight. Nick Castellanos opened the damage with a single that added 5.8 percent to San Diego's win probability, followed by a Gavin Sheets walk at plus 5.5 percent and a Jake Cronenworth single at plus 5.0 percent, with Sheets finishing as the game's most impactful position player by RE24 at plus 2.0. San Diego added a single run in the first to account for its full scoring. The Cubs' best chance at a response evaporated in the top of the sixth when Jefferson Rojas struck out against Marco Gonzales, a swing of negative 6.4 percent in win probability that stood as the single most consequential play of the night. A Dylan Carlson reached on a fielding error off Gonzales in the fourth added 5.8 percent for Chicago but ultimately went for nothing.
On the mound, Gonzales was the primary driver of the shutout, leading all pitchers with plus 14.3 percent win probability added, while Germán Márquez contributed plus 10.8 percent and Jacob Webb closed with plus 5.2 percent. Among position players, Owen Miller led San Diego with plus 8.2 percent WPA and a plus 0.6 RE24, while Sheets and Castellanos rounded out the top three contributors at plus 6.8 and plus 6.2 percent respectively. The model leans on this outcome as a reflection of San Diego's pitching staff thoroughly neutralizing a Cubs lineup that reached base seven times without converting a single run.
Analysis generated by DiamondIQ's model.