Nick Pivetta roughed up as Padres drop second straight to Cubs

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Apr 5, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CHICAGO — It was a 180-degree turn for the worse for Nick Pivetta on Saturday, and that is pretty much what has happened to the Padres over the past two games as well.

Pivetta’s first start with his new team was one of the highlights in a 7-0 launch to the Padres’ season, during which they forced the action on the bases, played sterling defense, capitalized on mistakes and got virtually all the big hits and crucial pitches they needed.

Pivetta made it through just three innings of what ended up a 7-1 loss to the Cubs on Saturday. And after two games of spotty pitching, sometimes-shoddy defense and watching an opponent do to them what they did so well in the opening homestand, the Padres will arrive at Wrigley Field on Sunday morning looking to avoid being swept.

Before the Cubs went about battering Pivetta, the Padres failed to bring home a runner from second who arrived there with one out in the first inning.

Pivetta also escaped trouble from a double in the first inning, leaving Ian Happ on second after he led off the game with a drive to the base of the wall.

The three straight outs Pivetta got after Happ’s hit would be the last time he would retire successive batters until he struck out the final two he faced to end the third inning.

He left having thrown 76 pitches to 19 batters.

This came six days after he worked seven shutout innings in his Padres debut, allowing only one of the 21 Braves batters he faced to reach base. That was on a third-inning single, and the runner was erased by a double play.

The Cubs had three hits, a walk and a run their first time through the order on Saturday. In all, Pivetta allowed six hits and walked three.

His 36 pitches in the second inning were twice as many as he threw in any inning in his first start.

After No. 9 batter Carson Kelly gave the Cubs a 1-0 lead with a two-out single in the second, Pivetta walked Happ to load the bases and then walked Kyle Tucker, the second RBI walk issued by a Padres starting pitcher in two days.

An out on the first pitch of the third inning was followed by a Dansby Swanson home run.

Pivetta took a total of 26 pitches to get through that inning after the Cubs loaded the bases on an error by Jake Cronenworth, a bunt single and another infield single on which first baseman Luis Arraez broke for home for a potential cutoff thinking the ball had gotten past Cronenworth.

The Cubs scored a run against Omar Cruz in the fourth inning and three against Alek Jacob in the sixth.

The Padres, who had not gone more than six innings without scoring before arriving in chilly Chicago, scored for the first time in 13 innings when Brandon Lockridge hit a one-out single in the seventh inning, went to third on Elías Díaz’s single and scored on a single by Fernando Tatis Jr.

That gave the Padres four hits in their past 28 at-bats with runners in scoring position.