SAN DIEGO — As it had seemed would be the case for some time, the Padres found out Saturday they will begin the postseason away from San Diego.

“Road warriors,” Ryan O’Hearn said Saturday afternoon. “We’re going to Chicago to win.”

They might have to do it with a new backup catcher and with a pitching plan that seems tenuous.

But they know where they will have to do it.

The Cubs teased the Padres by losing six of their seven games between last week and this one, making it seem possible Petco Park would be where the two teams faced off in a best-of-three series beginning Tuesday.

But it was never probable.

All it did was delay the Padres packing.

“When you looked at it, they had a home game and had to lose the next two,” Gavin Sheets said. “For me, I had in my head that we were going to Wrigley.”

When the Cubs beat the Cardinals on Friday, it meant the Padres would have to sweep their series against the Diamondbacks and have the Cubs lose their two remaining games in order for the Padres to get the home field.

The Padres won on Friday, but when the Cubs beat the Cardinals again early Saturday, it made the Padres’ remaining results meaningless.

“Now it’s all set in stone,” Sheets said. “We know who we got, we know what we got, we know where we’ve got it.”

The Padres went ahead and won on Saturday, hitting three home runs in the first two innings of a 5-1 victory over the Diamondbacks.

The defeat was not without a potentially significant cost, as catcher Elias Díaz grabbed at his side after taking a swing in the fourth inning and departed the game one pitch later. The precise nature of his injury was not known, but it could mean the Padres are replacing their backup catcher for the wild-card series.

Díaz had hit the third of the Padres’ homers after Fernando Tatis Jr. led off the game with a blast to the third balcony of the Western Metal Building and Xander Bogaerts came up two batters later and sent a ball to the same place.

The real significance in Saturday’s game for the Padres was in the performance of Michael King. And that, as has been the case with Padres starting pitchers for much of the past two months, was not encouraging.

King retired the side in order in the second inning but allowed a single and hit a batter in the first and issued a pair of two-out walks in the third before being pulled after 49 pitches.

The Padres have yet to name their starting pitchers for the series against the Cubs, but Nick Pivetta is virtually certain to start Game 1.

King being pulled so quickly Saturday could mean he will join fellow starter Randy Vásquez in the bullpen, as it would seemingly make him available to work by Tuesday. King could also be available to start a potential Game 3.

The Padres have been mulling Dylan Cease as a Game 2 starter. Yu Darvish is also a candidate to start in the series.

The Padres (89-72) will finish the regular season Sunday afternoon with a chance at reaching 90 wins in consecutive seasons for the first time in franchise history.

Mostly, they have turned their attention to the Cubs.

Pivetta moved on to the postseason after his last start. The analytics department has broken down the Cubs lineup and pitching staff. Shildt and coaches have been consulting with the team’s scouts, who have been following the Cubs for weeks. Shildt and the pitching coaches and members of the baseball operations staff have debated the makeup of the pitching staff.

Said Shildt: “We spent the majority of the last couple days and a lot of time today getting prepared and ready to go.”

The site of the wild-card series becoming official also meant flights did not have to be cancelled — not the team’s charter on Sunday night nor the two chartered planes for spouses, various team employees and sponsors.

There was also business for the players to attend to.

Early Saturday afternoon, the team’s veterans met to discuss how to divvy up playoff shares.

“It’s a playoff atmosphere surrounding the clubhouse and in everybody’s mind,” Jose Iglesias said. “So everybody is excited.”

©2025 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.