The Padres opened the 2026 season with an 8-2 loss to Detroit, never threatening after the Tigers scored four times in the first inning. Detroit added two more in the third and tacked on two more in the fifth, while San Diego managed its first run only in the sixth.
Nick Pivetta lasted three innings and allowed six earned runs on seven hits and three walks. The first inning was the damage that mattered. Spencer Torkelson drew a run-scoring walk; Torres had walked, Keith singled him to second, and Greene walked to load the bases before Torkelson’s walk forced Torres in. Kevin McGonigle followed with a two-run double on a line drive to right field, scoring Colt Keith and Riley Greene. Dillon Dingler singled in a fourth run before Pivetta finally got out of it. Detroit added two more in the third when McGonigle doubled to put two runners in scoring position and Parker Meadows singled in both Torkelson and McGonigle. Ron Marinaccio inherited a six-run deficit in the fourth and retired Torres, Keith, and Greene in order in that inning before allowing a Dingler two-run home run in the fifth to push it to eight. McGonigle went 4-for-5 with two doubles and two RBI, and Dingler finished 2-for-5 with a home run and three RBI.
On the other side, Tarik Skubal threw six innings and gave up one run, which was unearned, on three hits, walking nobody and striking out six. The one blemish came in the sixth, when Xander Bogaerts doubled in Fernando Tatis Jr., who had reached on a throwing error by Javier Báez, Detroit’s shortstop. The Padres cycled through their at-bats against him the way you flip past a channel with nothing on. He simply did not allow the Padres to get comfortable.
Ramón Laureano hit a solo home run to left in the seventh inning against Drew Anderson, briefly making the score look less embarrassing at 8-2. The Padres stranded seven runners on the night, which is a more flattering way of saying the lineup kept putting men on base and then doing nothing with them. Seven times. Bradgley Rodriguez threw two clean innings and struck out three.
It is one game, and the calendar reads late March, but the Padres managed five hits against a Detroit staff that used five arms, and Skubal made it look easy. Tatis reached base twice and Bogaerts drove in the only run San Diego scored against the starter, and based on what this lineup showed tonight, expecting more from the hitters around them in this opening series is probably optimistic.
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