Padres' $55 Million Acquisition Makes Friars Look Genius in Dominant Debut

The San Diego Padres have officially started the Nick Pivetta era, and he did not disappoint.

Petco Park was electric on a Friars edition of Sunday Night Baseball where their new pitching acquisition tossed seven innings with four strikeouts and only allowed one hit to get San Diego to 4-0 for the first time since 1984.

After Pivetta's dominat debut, manager Mike Shildt gave the right-hander some very high praise.

“I mean, welcome to San Diego, Nick Pivetta,” said Shildt. “He dominated counts, had life on his heater, a really, really good curveball. His sweeper was good. … Really masterful game from Nick.”

Pivetta only threw 82 pitches in his debut — 57 of which were strikes — to secure the sweep. Superstar teammate Fernando Tatis Jr. noted his dominance after the game as well.

“He keeps you in the game,” Tatis said. “He’s pounding the zone. … He showed what he’s going to bring to this team today, and I can’t wait to play behind him.”

Pivetta added to a streak of 22 consecutive scoreless innings from San Diego this week in the midst of their undefeated start. Although it is just an incremental sample size of an arduous baseball season, these past four games have shown so much promise for what's to come.

Pivetta has never finished a season with an ERA under 4.00 in his eight campaigns, but has been lowering his WHIP steadily since his debut. Last season not only saw a 1.126 WHIP, but by far his highest strikeout-to-walk ratio of 4.78 over 145.2 innings (the fourth-highest mark in his career).

The efficiency that Pivetta is displaying not only helped San Diego clinch a dominant series sweep with a National TV audience watching at home, but will help him keep up his stamina deep into the season. If Pivetta keeps having outings like Sunday, fans can expect to see these kind of performances deep into October as well.

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