NL WILD CARD SERIES: CUBS VS PADRES

September 29, 2026

Craig Counsell

Petco Park

Chicago Cubs

Postgame Press Conference

Q. Home run ball has been an issue for the pitching staff all season long. What did you see from Boyd? Was it just a lack of execution today?

CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, he obviously got jumped the first pitch. The pitch to Machado was not a bad pitch. The pitch to Bogaerts was a 3-2 pitch, probably too much of the plate and kind of middle. None of them were really down. I'd probably say that was the one thing about them. But they did a good job with him.

Q. Michael's been pretty good lately, but that was probably as good as some of his pitches were. I wonder what you thought of King and when you said, wow, Michael King is on tonight?

CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, King pitched very well for sure. He just did what he normally does, just probably executed a little bit better. The stuff was a little bit up tonight, which we expected. We completely expected that in this atmosphere.

We didn't have a lot of good contact. Nico hit a ball hard, Ian hit a ball hard. Other than that, we didn't square many balls up, and that's a sign of a pitcher making a lot of good pitches and controlling counts.

Q. In a short series like this, when you go down three or four runs, just how does it change your approach, the team's approach, just the complexity of the game once you're playing from behind?

CRAIG COUNSELL: Well, yeah, you never want to play from behind. It means you've got to score, and we didn't score. There's nothing more than that really.

Obviously you can think about reliever usage a little bit. We would have done something different had we -- we just didn't get anything going offensively. We were through five innings, and then you kind of know what's on the other side, and you've got to make bets on what do you want to do with the game?

Q. How hard is it to play in an atmosphere that gets so raucous off the jump with Michael throwing, you guys have a swing and a miss and the crowd's going crazy and the home runs in the bottom of the first.

CRAIG COUNSELL: Yeah, it's a great crowd. It's a fun crowd. It's just fun to play in. It's loud for the other team for sure, but the crowd was great. They were awesome. They had a lot to cheer about tonight, and we didn't give them anything to be quiet about.

Q. Do you have a Game 2 starter yet?

CRAIG COUNSELL: Gausman.

Q. How much different was this lineup that you -- the Padres lineup than, say, last year in terms of the challenge getting through it? Last year they had those three lefties.

CRAIG COUNSELL: We did a good job with Tatis last year. We did not do a good job today, and it starts with that.