{"id":233887,"date":"2026-03-24T09:06:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/233887\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T09:06:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T09:06:25","slug":"nick-pivetta-is-of-course-the-padres-opening-day-starter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/233887\/","title":{"rendered":"Nick Pivetta is, of course, the Padres’ opening-day starter"},"content":{"rendered":"

PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 The Padres waited and waited. And they \u2026 waited \u2026 some more.<\/p>\n

When on Monday morning, hours before spring training concluded, they became the last of the 30 MLB teams to name an opening-day starter, it was the guy it was going to be all along:<\/p>\n

Nick Pivetta.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was our best pitcher throughout the whole entire last season, was our No. 1 starter when we took on the Cubs in the Wild Card Series,\u201d manager Craig Stammen said. \u201cHe has pitched great in spring training, and he deserves to get the opening-day nod.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s start against the Detroit Tigers and two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal will be Pivetta\u2019s first on opening day.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou just kind of look at the guys that have gotten opening days in the past that I played with, they\u2019re all great pitchers, great human beings,\u201d Pivetta said. \u201cSo it\u2019s just an honor to be able to get that. And hopefully I can just start off with a good start. \u2026 It\u2019s always fun to have firsts in the big leagues. This is another one. I\u2019m excited for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old right-hander set the pace for the rotation in 2025. He was the Padres\u2019 most consistent starter<\/a>, and he ranked among the league leaders in virtually every category.<\/p>\n

That included being tied for ninth among MLB starters in ERA (2.87) and ranking fifth in WHIP (0.98), 13th in strikeout percentage (26.4%) and 18th in innings pitched (181\u2154).<\/p>\n

That took the mystery out of who would be on the mound when 2026 began \u2014 until a bout of arm fatigue caused the Padres to skip Pivetta\u2019s scheduled third start in early March.<\/p>\n

That resulted in him making just four Cactus League starts and reaching 71 pitches in four-plus innings in his final spring outing on Friday. Michael King threw 91 pitches over five innings Sunday in his fifth start of spring.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were deciding between him and Michael, and part of (the delay in announcing the opening-day starter) was Nick\u2019s little break that he took and whether we felt comfortable with him (having) not as high a pitch count as Michael, taking the ball on opening day,\u201d Stammen said. \u201cSo we weighed all the options and stuck with what we felt like going into spring training was the guy that deserved to pitch on opening day. \u2026 The opening-day starter has a lot to do with what you\u2019ve done the past year.\u201d<\/p>\n

King will start Friday and Randy V\u00e1squez on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Padres are off Sunday, and Walker Buehler will pitch Monday or Tuesday. Germ\u00e1n M\u00e1rquez is expected to be the Padres\u2019 fifth starter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PEORIA, Ariz. \u2014 The Padres waited and waited. And they \u2026 waited \u2026 some more. When on Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[181,1334,74,76,75,2611,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-233887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-latest-headlines","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-san-diego","11":"tag-san-diego-headlines","12":"tag-san-diego-news","13":"tag-san-diego-padres","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}