What the Padres Opening Day Loss Told Us

The San Diego Padres were blown out by the Detroit Tigers, 8-2, on Opening Day in front of the Petco Park faithful.

Right-handed pitcher Nick Pivetta struggled in his first career Opening Day start, while the offense was shut down against reigning back-to-back Cy Young award winner Tarik Skubal.

Here's everything we learned from the Padres' Opening Day loss — and something we don't know quite yet.

Nick Pivetta is Due for Some Regression

The Padres added Pivetta last spring in a move that turned out to be a saving grace for the team.

Pivetta led the team in innings pitched (181.2), ERA (2.87), batting average against (.195) and WHIP (0.99). He was the ace in a rotation that expected to be headlined by Dylan Cease, Michael King and Yu Darvish, and helped lead San Diego to the postseason.

While all that was great, Pivetta did appear to be the beneficiary of some favorable luck.

His expected numbers (3.99 xERA, .229 xBA) were far worse than his actual numbers. He was also among the worst pitchers in MLB in terms of hard-hit percentage and barrel percentage, two key metrics that tend to lead to success.

While Pivetta was the obvious choice to start on Opening Day this season — mainly due to the question marks surrounding King — he doesn't exactly have the feel of a true ace for this team.

On Thursday, he was roughed up by the Tigers, allowing six earned runs while lasting just three innings. He allowed seven hits and walked three across 69 strenuous pitches.

The Tigers, of course, were a playoff team a year ago and are no easy lineup to navigate. However, Pivetta's potential struggles shouldn't come as a surprise, as he was unlikely to have as good a season as last year without significant improvement.

He didn't show much on Opening Day.

Manager Craig Stammen Didn't Overthink Things

The other thing we learned on Thursday is that first-year manager Craig Stammen decided to not overthink anything in his first game.

Stammen surprised just about everyone when he had Xander Bogaerts in the leadoff spot early in spring training. He didn't give Fernando Tatis Jr. a shot in the leadoff spot until the penultimate Cactus League game.

However, in the first game of the season, it was Tatis — the team's leadoff hitter for most of last year — manning the top spot in the lineup.

Stammen has made it clear he won't have one set lineup all year, and plans on tinkering with the order until he gets the right combination.

“Based on what my mind has been doing the last few days trying to come up with the Opening Day lineup, I feel like I’m gonna have a different lineup almost every day,” Stammen said. “So we’ll see. I think, like in today’s age, we have so much information about what a pitcher is throwing to the plate and the hitter’s swing type and bat path and all that kind of stuff. I think it’s smart to change your lineup every day to put try to put your best players out there in the best situation to succeed.

“And so, yeah, I won’t have a set lineup. Maybe we get going in the season, it’s like: This is how we score runs the best. That may be what it’s like, but at least in the beginning, we’re going to try new things and try different things and see what shakes out.”

At least for one game, he decided to go back to what worked a year ago.

The Offense Was Quiet — But It's Too Early To Comment

The one thing we didn't exactly learn a lot about in the first game of the season is the offense.

Yes, the Padres were shut down to open the season. But to be fair, they were going up against arguably the best pitcher in baseball in Tarik Skubal.

Skubal was on, pitching six innings — with one unearned run — while striking out six in a dominant showing. Sometimes, you have to just tip your cap to a good pitcher and move on to the next one.

It's not fair to judge the offense off one game. It's even less fair to do it when that game is against a reigning two-time Cy Young award winner.

We'll check back in a couple days.