PHILADELPHIA — Good thing the Padres have Nick Pivetta.
That is not a new thought.
It is just accompanied by a more pronounced sigh of relief with every week that passes without Yu Darvish and Michael King and with almost every start Dylan Cease makes.
The No.1 starter the Padres didn’t know they had and the No.1 starter they thought they had pitched in succession on Wednesday, providing pretty much a side-by-side comparison of what has saved them and what might contribute to their downfall.
Pivetta allowed one run in six innings in the Padres’ 6-4 victory in the first game of a doubleheader against the Phillies. Cease followed not with a horrible start but certainly not with what the Padres need from him, allowing four runs over six innings in a 5-1 loss.
Pivetta (9-2, 3.25) moved into a tie for the National League lead in wins by spreading around seven hits and walking none against the team he pitched for from 2017 until he was traded to Boston at the deadline in 2020. That gave the Padres a chance to win the series and finish their six-game road trip even. Instead, they went 1-2 in Philadelphia after doing so in Cincinnati over the weekend.
The Padres scored half their runs in the afternoon victory on bases-loaded walks and half on Manny Machado’s bases-loaded double.
“If we do that, this team is going to be virtually unstoppable,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said after his team walked a season-high nine times in that first game. “It really is. We were very stingy. Weren’t going to give them anything that wasn’t on the plate. Amazing job.”
The Padres didn’t get a chance to be that judicious against left-hander Cristopher Sánchez in the nightcap.
Sánchez (7-2, 2.68) allowed one run while throwing just 85 pitches — 60 for strikes — over seven innings. He had thrown just 33 pitches (23 strikes) through four innings.
Fernando Tatis Jr. began the fourth inning by beating out a slow roller down the third base line to become the Padres’ first baserunner.
Before Sánchez even threw a pitch to Jackson Merrill, Tatis took off for second base. It was a little early, and Sánchez threw behind Tatis to first baseman Otto Kemp, who might have gotten Tatis at second if his throw was not right over the sliding Tatis, well to the left of shortstop Trea Turner. The ball got by Turner and bounced into center field as Tatis ran to third.
Merrill then sent a grounder through the right side to bring in Tatis before Machado grounded into a double play and Luis Arraez grounded out to third.
Sánchez would give up just two more hits and finish with 11 groundball outs, most on his sinker, and five strikeouts, most built with misses against his changeup.
“We tried to get him early,” said Machado, who had a 405-foot drive in the first inning caught above the wall in center field. “We hit some balls hard, but just right at them. I got on one up in the air, got robbed, and then he started throwing that changeup. Looked just like the heater. It was a good pitch. One he got in a rhythm, started making some good pitches, and then kept us off balance with that changeup.”
Cease (3-8, 4.62) got through three scoreless innings before Max Kepler’s two-run homer in the fourth put the Phillies on top.
“I hung it, and he hit it hard,” Cease said.
A Brandon Marsh homer leading off the fifth and another run on two singles in that inning put the Phillies up 4-1. They scored once in the seventh against Yuki Matsui and Eduarniel Nuñez, who allowed an inherited runner to score in his major league debut.
Cease and Shildt assessed the right-hander to have been fairly sharp, which continues a theme this season, in which Cease looks and feels close to his old self.
“Stuff was pretty good,” Cease said. “… I really just feel like there’s one pitch I wish I could take back, which is the slider to Kepler. But other than that, it was pretty decent.”
Wednesday was a typical start for him this season, not awful but not what is expected and needed. The Padres fell to 9-9 in his starts.
“Not being more consistent and giving more of a chance to win, it’s frustrating,” Cease said. “I’ve battled. I mean, I’m proud of how I fight. It’s just, you know, I haven’t executed super well this year.”
The Padres won 20 of his 33 starts in 2024, as he finished with a 3.47 ERA and in the top five in the NL in innings, strikeouts and batting average allowed.
It was widely anticipated he would be among the anchors of the starting rotation along with Darvish and King.
Instead, he has struggled to command his fastball and slider and also to maintain a consistent bite on his slider, which has in past seasons been among the toughest pitches to hit in the major leagues.
Meanwhile, Darvish has been sidelined since the middle of spring training with elbow discomfort and King has not pitched since mid-May due to a nerve issue near his shoulder. Darvish is expected to return, in the coming weeks, but King just began a throwing progression last week and while he insists he will pitch in 2025, there is no guarantee of that.
Pivetta, signed to a four-year, $55 million contract with the idea he would provide depth in the rotation and be a solid No.3 or 4 starter, on Wednesday turned in his eighth start in which he went at least six innings and allowed no more than one run. That is tied with the Phillies’ Zack Wheeler and Pirates’ Paul Skenes for most in the major leagues.
“He’s been huge,” Shildt said. “… We’ve had some guys really step up, and Nick has been the guy that stepped up when we needed it — a veteran guy that’s come in that has real time in this league, that has some pedigree, been on some good teams, and he has fit right in. He’s taking the challenge to be an anchor for our starting pitching. And as we all know that starting pitching anchor spots are huge.”
Originally Published: July 2, 2025 at 12:58 PM PDT