The Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres are in the middle of Game 2 in the best-of-three Wild Card series. The Cubs won Game 1 on Tuesday night thanks to back-to-back home runs from Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly. If the Cubs win one more game, they will advance to the NLDS to take on their division rival, the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Padres are aiming to bounce back from the Game 1 loss with a must-win to force a winner-take-all Game 3 on Thursday. To start Game 2, Cubs manager Craig Counsell decided to go with an opener, Andrew Kittredge. Kittredge allowed a first-inning run off a sacrifice fly from Jackson Merrill. The reason for the opener was to avoid Shota Imanaga (who replaced Kittredge) facing the heart of the Padres lineup. However, that backfired.

In the 5th inning, Manny Machado smashed a two-run home run to give San Diego a 3-0 lead.

Padres beat reporter for MLB.com, AJ Cassavell, couldn't understand what Counsell was doing by letting Imanaga pitch to Machado.

“I cannot believe they let Shota Imanaga face Manny Machado with first base open. But they did. And Machado made the Cubs pay on Imanaga's first pitch. It's a two-run homer, and the Padres lead 3-0.”

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He continued with a second post.

“Still don't get it. Like, the whole point of using an opener in the first place was basically to avoid Machado-Imanaga, right? Welp, them's the breaks, and the Padres sure capitalized.”

The Cubs still trail in this game 3-0 as the 7th inning is underway. If the Cubs are going to win this game, they will have to take on a nasty Padres bullpen to do so. The Padres bullpen is one of the best in the league, led by flamethrower Mason Miller.