The San Diego Padres receive endless praise for their first-class bullpen, and rightly so, but their starting pitching rotation has been littered with question marks for much of the 2025 campaign. Dylan Cease struggled before getting into a groove in September, Michael King made only 15 starts due to injury and Father Time has caught up to Yu Darvish. Nick Pivetta is the stabilizing force of this group and was therefore the only logical choice to start Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series. He made a couple of mistakes, though, and that was enough to hand the Friars an unsettling 3-1 loss versus the Chicago Cubs .

Pivetta breezed through the fist four innings but ran into trouble in the bottom of the fifth inning. He allowed back-to-back home runs to scorching-hot Seiya Suzuk

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