The San Diego Padres routed the Cincinnati Reds 14-3 at Peoria Stadium on March 8, 2026, a result that was never especially close and finished with the DiamondIQ model's estimate of San Diego's win probability reaching 100 percent. The Padres opened the scoring in the first inning when Gavin Sheets connected on a home run off Chase Burns, a swing worth plus-5.9 percent in win probability that set an early tone. Cincinnati briefly threatened in the second inning, but Will Banfield grounded into a double play off Logan Gillaspie, a sequence that cost the Reds 11.0 percent in win probability and effectively extinguished the rally before it started. The Reds' most significant counterattack came in the seventh inning when Alfredo Duno launched a home run off Ethan Routzahn, the single largest win-probability swing of the game at plus-11.4 percent for Cincinnati, though it arrived far too late to alter the outcome.
The game's true knockout blow came in the bottom of the eighth inning, when San Diego sent nine runs across the plate to turn a manageable deficit into a blowout. Across the full contest, it was the Padres' pitching staff that drove much of the model's probability movement, with Logan Gillaspie accumulating plus-16.3 percent in WPA and Kyle Hart adding plus-9.3 percent, collectively neutralizing Cincinnati's offense across a game in which the Reds finished with three errors and only five hits. Among position players, Alfredo Duno led all batters with plus-11.4 percent WPA and a RE24 of plus-1.3, while Nick Solak contributed plus-6.6 percent WPA and the game's highest RE24 among top performers at plus-1.6. Jackson Merrill rounded out San Diego's standout performers with plus-8.3 percent WPA, his strikeout in the second representing a pivotal moment that preserved the Padres' early advantage. The DiamondIQ model had entered the game favoring San Diego at 54 percent; by the final out, that figure told a story of a game that unfolded almost entirely in one direction.
Analysis generated by DiamondIQ's model.