The Padres drew the AL Cy Young winner (Tarik Skubal) on opening day. On Tuesday, they’ll face the reigning NL winner in Paul Skenes.

It is a matchup — at 3:40 p.m. on Padres.TV — that is more than two years in the making as they’ve managed to miss Skenes in each of the four previous series played since he was first called up in 2024.

Skenes went on to beat Padres center fielder Jackson Merrill in NL Rookie of the Year voting as he collected 23 of the 30 first-place votes from the Baseball Writers Association of America.

By one metric, Skenes’ 2024 campaign was worth 5.8 WAR as measured by baseball-reference.com, compared to Merrill’s 4.5. Merrill paired 24 homers with 90 RBIs and an .826 OPS while Skenes went 11-3 with 170 strikeouts over 133 innings (1.96 ERA).

Skenes’ 1.97 ERA led the majors last year. He turned in a dud on opening day (⅔ IP, 5 ER), although poor defense played a role in a 37-pitch inning. Skenes (1-1, 9.53 ERA) struck out five while allowing a run on three hits and two walks in five innings in a win in his last start in Cincinnati.

Only two Padres — Nick Castellanos (1-for-6, K) and Ty France (1-for-3, 2 Ks) — have regular season history with Skenes, but Fernando Tatis Jr. went 1-for-3 off Skenes in the World Baseball Classic and Manny Machado went 1-for-2 with a strikeout.

The Padres (5-5) will be rolling out their 11th different lineup in 11 games in search of the series win and a winning road trip, although the only change from Monday is swapping out Castellanos (.636 OPS) for Miguel Andujar (.711 OPS) as the seven-hole hitter and DH.

Piv takes the mound. pic.twitter.com/v4HRqU6i25

— San Diego Padres (@Padres) April 7, 2026

Left fielder Ramón Laureano will lead off for a third straight game as the Padres continue to look for production out of the top of the order.

The Padres, winners of three in a row, have a .353 OPS out of the leadoff spot, worst in the majors and less than half the league average (.710 OPS)

Both Laureano and Jake Cronenworth are 1-for-10 as leadoff hitters and Tatis is 3-for-21.

Here is how the Pirates (6-4) will line up:

11/162.

📺 @SNPittsburgh
📻 @937theFan pic.twitter.com/Anyx9htfPd

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 7, 2026

Padres right-hander Nick Pivetta (1-1, 6.75 ERA) rebounded from his own opening-day clunker (3 IP, 6 ER), striking out eight over five shutout innings to beat the Giants in his last start. He allowed one hit and walked two. He has a 2.17 ERA in six games (five starts) against the Pirates, including beating them last year with eight strikeouts over six innings of two-run ball.

Here is how Pivetta has fared in the regular season against current Pirates: