The San Diego Padres used to roll out a rotation that was close to elite, but now they're facing better pitching.
The San Diego Padres are 0-2 out of the gate for the first time since 2023, and it’s not hard to figure out why. The Padres have scored just four runs in two games as they opened their season facing starters Tarik Skubal and Framber Valdez of the Detroit Tigers, and they’re finding out what it’s like to come up against elite starting pitchers in consecutive games.
This used to be the Padres, of course. In the past they’ve been able to roll out some combination of Dylan Cease, Nick Pivetta, Michael King and Joe Musgrove, and even with the injuries the Padres have had to deal with that’s either elite or close to it.
But the Padres don’t have that luxury anymore. Their payroll growth has been shut down by the impending sale of the team, and their margin for error has become a lot smaller as a result.
The way this works has been easy to see in the first two games. The Padres started Pivetta on Opening Day despite the fact that he’d been dealing with arm fatigue throughout spring training, and the results were predictable as he gave up four runs in the first inning and left the Padres down 6-0 in the third inning against Skubal.
Last night it was more of the same, although at least it was competitive. Michael King was surprisingly strong for five innings as he struck out six and gave up just one unearned run on a single hit, but having to go to the bullpen early after the Opening Day debacle proved disastrous when Jeremiah Estrada gave up a four-spot in the eighth.
Meanwhile, Tigers starter Framber Valdez was cruising. He gave up seven hits, but the Padres were only able to push across a pair of runs against Valdez, and one of them was unearned. The Tigers made the decision to pay their new co-ace with a short-term deal when Valdez’s market dried up just before spring training, and the Padres could only watch from the sidelines.
San Diego’s margin for error will be just as thin in the third game of the season. Randy Vasquez can be a solid back-end starter, but there’s no way he’s equipped to be the third starter on a good team.
Things will get better, of course, and relatively quickly--maybe even tonight. But it’s hard not to think this is part of a trend that the Padres are going to be dealing with for at least a month or two given the way their rotation is constructed and the workload the bullpen will have to shoulder.