{"id":652388,"date":"2026-03-30T12:53:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652388\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:53:00","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:53:00","slug":"padres-fall-to-tigers-8-2-on-opening-day-detroit-player-shines-in-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/652388\/","title":{"rendered":"Padres fall to Tigers 8-2 on opening day; Detroit player shines in debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin McGonigle got four hits and drove in two runs in his auspicious major league debut during the Detroit Tigers’ 8-2 victory over the San Diego Padres<\/a> on Thursday.<\/p>\n

The 21-year-old McGonigle hit a two-run double with the bases loaded on the first big league pitch he saw in the first inning. He had a second double and an infield single while scoring two runs in his next two at-bats, and added a single in the ninth.<\/p>\n

McGonigle finished 4 for 5 while batting sixth and playing third base. After just 46 games last season in Double-A, the multi-position infielder made Detroit\u2019s major league roster with an undeniably strong spring, skipping Triple-A entirely.<\/p>\n

Two-time AL Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal (1-0) pitched six innings of three-hit ball with six strikeouts in his third straight opening day start for Detroit, allowing only an unearned run.<\/p>\n

Dillon Dingler homered and drove in three runs while Detroit jumped to an 8-0 lead in the fifth inning and cruised to its 12th win on opening day in the last 15 seasons.<\/p>\n

Xander Bogaerts hit an RBI double off Skubal in the sixth inning of a rough opener for rookie manager Craig Stammen and the Padres, who are coming off only the second back-to-back playoff appearances in franchise history. Stammen, the former Padres reliever, replaced Mike Shildt.<\/p>\n

Nick Pivetta (0-1) lasted just three innings in his first career opening day start, struggling through a 33-pitch first inning and getting the hook after yielding six runs on seven hits and three walks.<\/p>\n

Spencer Torkelson drew a bases-loaded walk from Pivetta right before McGonigle’s first-pitch double.<\/p>\n

McGonigle then lined a 105.9-mph double off the right-field wall in the third, barely beating Fernando Tatis Jr.’s throw to second. He scored his first big league run moments later on Parker Meadows’ single.<\/p>\n

Ram\u00f3n Laureano homered in the seventh for San Diego. Nick Castellanos<\/a> flied out to center with the bases loaded to end the eighth in his Padres debut.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin McGonigle got four hits and drove in two runs in his auspicious major league debut during the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2407],"tags":[5,4,43,137,18,4339,4338],"class_list":{"0":"post-652388","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego-padres","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-padres","11":"tag-san-diego","12":"tag-san-diego-padres","13":"tag-sandiego","14":"tag-sandiegopadres"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116318227874929026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}