The Padres will take the field on Friday nights wearing less mint and pink and a lot more obsidian and orange.
But the binational vibe of the Padres’ new City Connect uniforms, released early Thursday morning at Petco Park, remains the same. Just a little more muted.
The City Connect 2.0 gear is a tribute to “Dia de los Muertos,” an increasingly cross-border celebration of the dead typically held on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2. The Padres will wear their new uniforms for the first time on Friday against the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park, and will sport the new colors for every Friday home game after that. The club will also sport the new gear in its Mexico City Series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks later this month
The Padres’ new, navy pullover jerseys feature the same “San Diego” wordmark across the front — although this one is rendered in one color (white) instead of the pink-and-mint split that was the hallmark of the first City Connect iteration. A sleeve patch features La Catrina, a Dia de los Muertos icon, along with the word “Padres” in a new, bespoke font. (A woman dressed as La Catrina began appearing at Petco Park for the final home weekend of the 2025 regular season, likely as a tease to the new gear.)
The club’s new pants stripe features sublimated marigolds, the traditional flower of Dia de los Muertos. Accents of “fireberry” and teal harken back to the City Connect 1.0 gear.
The biggest departure comes with the caps, which are whitr — the team calls it bone — with a marigold and obsidian interlocking “SD” and an obsidian (deep navy) bill. Gone are the mint-and-pink lids that became a recent staple among San Diego kids (and some adults) and were easily identifiable even in packed stadiums. The Padres will wear obsidian batting practice caps before thei City Connect nights.
A Fernando Tatis Jr. San Diego Padres new City Connect uniform is displayed at Petco Park on April 9, 2026 in San Diego, CA.(K.C. Alfred / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
The Padres began wearing their polarizing City Connects in 2022, the second year of a partnership between Nike and MLB designed to bring more city-specific details to each team’s uniform options (and, let’s face it, sell merchandise). Teams are now cycling into their second — and in the Dodgers’ case, third — iterations of the special uniforms.
The Giants switched from an orange and white “G” logo, complete with a bridge and fog, to a black, purple and orange look best described as album art from the 1990s. The Rockies once wore forest green and white gear reminiscent of the state of Colorado’s license plates; now, they’re wearing a baby blue and purple getup meant to evoke Denver’s sunsets.
*City Connect 2.0 Photos for Media Distribution*
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: Jackson Merrill #3 of the San Diego Padres poses in the 2026 San Diego City Connect Uniform.(Photo by Matt Thomas/San Diego Padres)
In many ways, the Padres’ new gear is most reminiscent of what the NL West rival Diamondbacks have done with their City Connects in the last year. The Diamondbacks kept their initial City Connect wordmark — in their case, a cursive “Serpientes” — but switched the jersey color from sand to purple, a color they wore for the first decade of their existence. The Padres’ return to navy (or obsidian) harkens back to the alternate jerseys that the club wore throughout its run to the 1998 World Series.
Thursday’s reveal largely reflects the leaks that have trickled out since November, when the Padres posted a teaser video featuring wrestler Dominik Mysterio, a San Diego native, approaching an ofrenda, the altar used for Dia de los Muertos. The hat he placed at the ofrenda in the video turned out to be the new City Connect lids. While the Padres said in November that they would have no comment on the new uniforms until the start of the 2026 season, online leaks gave fans a sneak peek of the new gear weeks ago.
A Reddit post from around opening day revealed a purported jersey photo along with a tag that listed the Padres’ launch date as April 6 — three days earlier than Thursday’s announcement.