Red, white and blue bunting, flyovers and overreaction.
All treasured opening-day traditions.
For no other game will there be as much divined as there is after the first one, which accounts for just more than one half of 1% of the Major League Baseball season.
So in observance of that ritual ….
Yikes! The Padres’ starting pitching!
What Nick Pivetta did Thursday afternoon at Petco Park is ripe for excessive assessment, analysis and alarm, as an 8-2 loss to the Detroit Tigers was a nightmare that struck at the heart of the fears surrounding the 2026 Padres.
“Disconnected, out of rhythm,” Pivetta said after allowing six runs in three innings. “Didn’t make pitches when I needed to, kind of let it snowball on me. Just wasn’t able to make the adjustment today.”
Pivetta, who allowed four runs in the first inning, was bad enough that the Padres getting just three hits and an unearned run off Tarik Skubal in six innings was hardly even notable. That happens a fair amount against Skubal. Thursday was the 20th time in his past 63 starts that the winner of the past two American League Cy Young awards, has gone at least six innings while allowing three or fewer hits.
“Fell behind early and to try to claw back with that guy, it’s tough,” Gavin Sheets said. “One of those days. We’re 0-1. Come back and get ‘em tomorrow.”
Well, setting aside that rational thinking, Thursday could be viewed as validation of the big concern going into this season.
If there was one overriding reason the preseason predictions by analytics sites had the Padres finishing .500 or worse in 2026, it was because of questions about the quality and depth of their starting pitching. And their best starting pitcher from last season began this one with his worst start in nearly two years.
By alternately waiting out and pouncing on Pivetta, the Tigers scored more runs in the first inning than any opponent has ever scored in the 58 season-opening innings the Padres have been a major league club.
Pivetta began the day by striking out Kerry Carpenter on three pitches. None of those pitches were in the strike zone, and the Tigers would not be as generous going forward.
The next six batters would either get a hit on the first pitch they saw or walk, as Pivetta could not command his fastball and wasn’t all that successful chasing strikes with his curve. Those are his two best pitches, and the Tigers were especially selective knowing neither was working.
“I (was) just trying to get into a better rhythm, trying to get ahead of hitters,” Pivetta said. “I still have really good elite pitches. It’s just, you know, when nothing is in the zone and you’re behind guys, it’s very difficult in the big leagues.”
Pivetta’s third walk of the first inning brought in the Tigers’ first run. Two pitches later, following a double by Kevin McGonigle and single by Dillon Dingler, it was 4-0.
Craig Stammen of the San Diego Padres looks on in the dugout before Opening Day against the Detroit Tigers at Petco Park on Thursday, March 26, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
The Padres came to bat for the first time this season down four and facing a pitcher who over the previous two seasons had allowed more than three runs just 13 times and a team that was 59-3 in that span when they scored four or more runs in one of his starts.
Four runs was just a base for the Tigers, who added two runs against Pivetta in the third inning and got two more on Dillon Dingler’s home run off Ron Marinaccio in the fifth. And the Padres offered little challenge to Skubal after singles by Xander Bogaerts and Manny Machado with one out in the first inning.
That gave the Padres runners at the corners. They would not get another runner on base until Fernando Tatis Jr. reached on an error with one out in the sixth inning. Tatis ended up scoring on Bogaerts’ double. The 19 pitches Skubal threw in that inning were six more than the left-hander threw in any of the previous five, and his third straight opening-day start ended after that.
Skubal’s experience was far different than that of Pivetta’s in his first opening-day start, which the 33-year-old right-hander earned by finishing last season with the National League’s sixth-best ERA (2.87 ERA), second-best WHIP (0.99) and seventh-most innings (181⅔ innings).
“You can’t predict anything in baseball,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said. “All we can go off is what we’ve seen from him in the past and what he did specifically for us last year. He expects that. We expect that. And we’ll find out how it goes at the end of the year.”
Tarik Skubal #29 of the Detroit Tigers pitches against the San Diego Padres during Opening Day at Petco Park on Thursday, March 26, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Photo by Meg McLaughlin / The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
Never last season did Pivetta have a start as uncompetitive as Thursday’s.
After throwing 33 pitches while facing all nine Tigers batters in the first inning, Pivetta got through the second inning in 15 pitches before yielding three more hits in the third. He was at 69 pitches, and that would be all he threw before four relievers finished the game for the Padres.
Ramón Laureano’s home run off Drew Anderson in the seventh gave the Padres their second run.
Their only hopeful moment, such as it was, came in the eighth inning. That is when they got within a grand slam of being down two runs by loading the bases on a single and two walks against Tyler Holton. But pinch-hitter Nick Castellanos flied out to center field in his first at-bat with the Padres.
For more hope going forward, Bogaerts looked backward.
He noted that Padres pitching coach Ruben Niebla got one of the loudest cheers during Thursday’s pregame introductions for a reason.
“Ruben and those guys, they do a good job,” Bogaerts said. “… The pitching here since I’ve been here has been pretty good. So obviously, credit to the pitching coaches and to the pitchers that we have. So I feel like in the end, they will do their thing.”