PHOENIX -- You can’t have Father’s Day without padres and you couldn’t have a Padres win on Father’s Day without Nick Pivetta.
Less than 24 hours after a jarring ninth-inning defeat, the right-hander almost single-handedly assured that San Diego would depart Arizona’s Chase Field with at least one victory, leading the way in an 8-2 win Sunday afternoon.
Pivetta spun seven frames of two-run ball, limiting the only real damage to one swing in the fifth. Aside from that, he was wholly dominant, accruing nine strikeouts while walking just one batter. It marked the eighth time this season that a Padres starter went at least seven innings, moving the club to 7-1 in such contests.
For all of the highfalutin ways to break down Pivetta’s start, manager Mike Shildt may have said it best simply:
“Nick was very, very good today.”
Pivetta logged 11 whiffs on his four-seam fastball alone, his most in a single outing since Sept. 6, 2023, when he was a member of the Red Sox, and just one off his career best (July 7, 2017). The pitch has been vital to his success thus far in 2025, with the run value ranking sixth in MLB, behind a quintet of pitchers who are all likely bound for the Midsummer Classic next month -- Max Fried, Hunter Brown, Joe Ryan, Zack Wheeler and Robbie Ray.
Last year, for every 100 four-seam fastballs that Pivetta threw, it graded out as having 0.8 run value; entering his start Sunday, that same number was at 1.6. In layman’s terms: a pitch that was very good last season has gotten doubly better this year.
In addition to the swing and misses, the fastball also got nine called strikes, completely styming D-backs batters in the grand scheme of Pivetta’s sweeper and curveball both being on point as well.
“How the game goes is going to dictate how I’m going to pitch,” Pivetta said. “I think with where my heater location was tonight was good, and then where my offspeed location was really good as well.”
Working alongside catcher Elias Díaz like he has in all 14 starts this season, the 32-year-old retired the first 12 batters and faced just three above the minimum in total. A D-backs offense that scored five runs in a voracious flurry late Saturday night looked mystified just hours later, as anyone who has had that extra early-morning sugar rush can attest happens after a burst of appetite wears off.
“I think it's the expectation that the team has of me,” Pivetta said of being able to shut down Arizona’s bats after a tough-to-swallow defeat. “It's why I signed here. It's what I'm supposed to do. I'm supposed to go into baseball games and give the team the best chance to win, and I’m happy that I was able to execute pitches better this start."
But as the record books show, no starter has ever earned a win without getting run support. In the case of Pivetta on Sunday, he got a huge helping hand from right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., who delivered a season-high four hits from the leadoff spot and scored three times.
“The energy is contagious,” Shildt said of Tatis. “The style of play, it sets the tone. When he does that, [he’s the] best player on the planet. He just is and I don't want to say that because I don't want it to be a burden to him because that's a heavy one to carry, but the reality is when he's able to … put his whole game together, it's just a dynamic force that absolutely beats the other team.”
Throw in a dash of defensive help from Brandon Lockridge -- who made his 10th start of the year in center field in place of Jackson Merrill, who was placed on the 7-day concussion injured list prior to the game -- when he made a leaping grab up against the wall in the seventh. Add some thunder from Jake Cronenworth, who slugged a two-run homer on the 10th pitch of his at-bat in the fourth, the deepest into a plate appearance any Padres player has homered in 2025. You’ve got what amounts to an unbeatable concoction.