Right-hander Nick Pivetta’s San Diego Padres debut went just about perfectly. On Sunday night at Petco Park, Pivetta suffocated the Atlanta Braves with seven shutout innings in which he allowed one hit, faced the minimum, and struck out four with no walks. As such, he did the heavy lifting in a 5-0 Padres win, one that completed a four-game sweep of the Braves to start the 2025 season.
Of Pivetta’s 82 pitches, 57 went for strikes. He leaned primarily on his fastball, which averaged 92.7 mph for the evening. Pivetta also induced an impressive 20 swings and misses, including at least one whiff with each of his four offerings. Of note:
On offense, Fernando Tatis Jr. continued his magma-hot start to 2025 as he tallied a pair of hits, including a double, and two walks. He’s now slashing .467/.529/.733 on the young season.
The 32-year-old Pivetta’s sterling first start for San Diego comes after he signed a four-year, $55 million free-agent contract with the club this past offseason. It was the signature addition for the Padres, who otherwise did little else over the winter to fortify the roster of a team that made the playoffs last season.
The Padres are now 4-0 for just the second time in franchise history. The first time was in 1984, when they went on to win the pennant before falling to the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. A hot start for Mike Shildt’s club may be important this season, as a perhaps unstable ownership situation has led to payroll disinvestment, which in turn has led to widespread reporting that the Padres are willing to consider trading ace Dylan Cease or No. 2 man Michael King. A surge to start 2025, however, could perhaps put such speculation to rest, at least for the time being.
On the other side, the Braves’ trouble scoring runs goes beyond Pivetta’s gem. They scored a total of seven runs in the entire four-game set, and they haven’t scored since the fifth inning of the second game of the series on Friday. That amounts to 22 straight scoreless innings for the Atlanta offense.
This is the Braves’ first 0-4 start since 2021. The consolation therein is that the Braves in 2021 went on to win the World Series. On the other hand, the Braves now head to Los Angeles for a three-game series against the mighty Dodgers, which means that 0-4 mark may get even worse and thus render moot any tidy comparisons to 2021 (the Braves that year won four straight after that initial four-game skid).
Looking further forward, the Braves at some point early-ish in the season will get back two essential contributors — ace Spencer Strider (torn UCL) and former MVP Ronald Acuña Jr. (torn ACL). Things will get better, to be sure, but the 2025 season has thus far unfolded in grim fashion for the Braves — especially grim considering how tough the National League East figures to be this season.
