Pivetta remains solid as string of unlucky breaks continues for San Diego

PITTSBURGH -- Nick Pivetta and Paul Skenes dueled on Tuesday night at PNC Park. And although Skenes, the Pirates’ superstar right-hander, came out victorious, it was hard to fault the Padres’ pitching staff. Even in a 7-1 defeat.

Pittsburgh took full advantage of some seeing-eye singles and some shaky Pades defense, tying this week’s series at a game apiece ahead of Wednesday’s finale.

Here’s some reaction from a frigid PNC Park:

Unlucky? Or something else?

Pivetta nearly matched Skenes -- and he probably would have, if not for some rough batted-ball luck.

All four hits Pivetta allowed came with an expected batting average of .220 or lower. Which is to say: Based on the quality of contact -- the exit velocity combined with the launch angle -- those batted balls usually aren’t hits. But everything the Pirates hit seemed to find a hole.

“Balls were just going where we don’t have defenders,” said manager Craig Stammen.

In the fifth, the Pirates hit three grounders to the left side. Two of them snuck through, with Manny Machado shifted toward second base. One of them -- Konnor Griffin’s -- was soft enough that Machado couldn’t quite get the speedy Griffin at first. Those three hits ended up being worth two Pirates runs.

Pivetta looked excellent for a second straight start, punching out eight while walking just one. But he finished with nothing to show for it.

“Just how it goes sometimes,” Pivetta said.

The same could be said about the Pirates’ five-run eighth -- except, in this case, the Padres could only fault themselves. Gavin Sheets misplayed a grounder at first, then Xander Bogaerts booted a grounder at short. The floodgates opened.

Still, the Pirates combined for a .181 expected batting average on a night they pounded out 12 hits. So, was this just a quirk of baseball? Or something else? Should the Padres re-evaluate their defensive positioning?

“You could call it baseball,” Stammen said. “But you can also try to figure it out. And that’s what we’ll try to do: Try to figure it out, see if we need to make an adjustment.”

Skenes just too much

Memorably, the Padres did not face Paul Skenes during his run to the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year Award. Jackson Merrill, the second-place finisher in that race, never got the chance to make his case head-to-head.

Skenes didn’t face the Padres in 2025 either. After Tuesday night, the Padres might be hoping they don’t have to face him for another couple years -- and certainly not on a bitter cold night like this one.

“He’s good for a reason,” said Bogaerts. “He has good pitches, can throw them all for strikes, any count.”

Skenes carried a no-hitter into the sixth inning, before Fernando Tatis Jr. shot a clean single through the left side. In the seventh, Bogaerts turned on a Skenes fastball and sent it into the left-field seats for his first home run of the season -- and the first Skenes has allowed.

That would be all for Skenes, and those were the only two hits he allowed on the night. Merrill finished 0-for-4.

Bogey’s breakout

It was an up-and-down night for Bogaerts, whose error in the ninth inning proved especially costly. He later admitted to rushing on a ball that he knew was never likely to be a double play.

“If we take care of the ball, it’s a different [game],” Bogaerts said. “I’d take away the error if you take away the homer. That’s how much I value the defense.”

Still, Bogaerts’ surge at the plate is an undeniably positive sign. Through the first week of the season, the Padres were, collectively, one of the unluckiest offenses in baseball. And Bogaerts was among the sport’s unluckiest hitters (at least according to those expected numbers).

At the time, he groused that he didn’t want to hear about expected numbers. He wanted results. But the expected numbers indicated that Bogaerts was plenty of good things at the plate -- and that the results would follow.

Sure enough, Bogaerts is 6-for-11 with a double and a homer across the last three games.

“Start of the season, we felt really good about how he was swinging,” said Stammen. “He looked like the Xander Bogaerts that we were looking forward to. He had a couple games where he was kind of off. And now he’s back to what he was. That’s exciting, and I think it bodes well for the rest of the season for him.”