Nick Pivetta named Padres Opening Day starter
Don't count out the Padres yet, power ranking the men's Sweet 16 teams, Tiger Woods returns to TGL (a Masters warm-up?), exploring Tijuana's Taco Museum, and a bunch more in today's Front Row Seat.
In yesterday’s writeup about the San Diego Padres starting rotation, I didn’t even mention Joe Musgrove. I am aware that he will, in theory, be a part of the team’s starting rotation at some point. Here’s why I didn’t include him:
One, I was talking about the rotation to start the season (the question of who would be the Opening Day starter has been answered, and it’s Nick Pivetta). Joe is set to start the season on the Injured List after missing all of last season recovering from Tommy John surgery.
Two, I am a big “I’ll believe it when I see it” guy. Joe has thrown pitches in one spring training game, against Great Britain, and two things happened. First, he was pretty awful (and had to be pulled in the 1st inning for relief). Second, his arm did not react well to it and he has not thrown another pitch since.
I know these arm surgeries have the appearance of being pretty routine at this point, but there’s a chance that Joe Musgrove is never again the guy that the Padres signed to a 5-year, $100M contract. I’m certainly not going to count on him being that guy until he shows me that he can do it.
Third, I think it’s important to sit with the Walker Buehlers and German Marquezes in the starting rotation because we're going to be seeing a lot of that this season (unless Preller makes a move) either way.
I like the Padres lineup more than I did a year ago, and I still think the bullpen can be the best in baseball (I’m less worried about Jason Adam’s return from injury than Joe Musgrove’s), but the starting rotation is a real challenge for first-year first-time MLB manager Craig Stammen. Let’s see if he’s up for it.
Now, onto the links…
San Diego Padres
Nick Pivetta is, of course, the Padres’ opening-day starter - San Diego Union-Tribune
“He was our best pitcher throughout the whole entire last season, was our No. 1 starter when we took on the Cubs in the Wild Card Series,” manager Craig Stammen said. “He has pitched great in spring training, and he deserves to get the opening-day nod.”
Thursday’s start against the Detroit Tigers and two-time reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal will be Pivetta’s first on opening day.
Ranking all 30 MLB starting pitching rotations ahead of Opening Day - The Athletic
The Padres are hoping that Nick Pivetta can repeat the strong performance he provided last year, and Michael King can stay healthy and return to his pre-injury form. They have similar hopes for Joe Musgrove, though Musgrove is already expected to miss Opening Day after his arm didn’t bounce back from a March 4 spring outing. The rest of the rotation is an open competition, with Randy Vásquez having the most upside.
Padres Nearing Deal With Jose Leclerc - MLB Trade Rumors
Leclerc is just over a year removed from earning a $10MM deal from the A’s. That was somewhat surprising at the time but he did have some intriguing stuff on his track record. From 2018 to 2024, he tossed 299 2/3 innings for the Rangers, allowing 3.24 earned runs per nine. His 11.8% walk rate was quite high but his 31.8% strikeout rate was very strong.
In that time, he had worked both as a closer and a setup guy, earning 41 saves and 58 holds. He mixed in six different pitches, with his four-seamer and sinker sitting in the mid-90s as he also threw a high-80s cutter and changeup, a low-80s slider and a curveball in the high-70s.
MLB The Show: Padres will need more than they have to make playoffs - San Diego Union-Tribune
Fangraphs says the Padres will win just over 79 games and will open the season with a 21.6% shot at making the postseason. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA projections have the Padres pegged for 81.1 wins. Ceasars is setting the over/under at 83.5 wins.
So a simulation of the Padres’ 2026 season via “MLB The Show 26” amounting to an 82-win effort that misses a wild-card spot by two games makes sense.
At least as the Padres are presently constructed.
Which is what nobody can predict:
What will Padres baseball ops chief do to push his team into the postseason a third straight year, especially if he gets a cash boost from a new owner looking to make a splash with the fanbase?
How Spring Training ABS results compare to Triple-A from ‘25 - MLB.com
In more than 1,800 challenges this spring, the overturn rate was 53%. Batters weren’t as good (45% success rate) as fielding teams (60%). This is more or less exactly what we saw last year, and expected to see this year.
That batters are consistently wrong more often than they’re right tells you something about how effective umpires really are. (Remember that a batter will only challenge when he thinks he’s been wronged, and even then they’re frequently wrong about it.) It also tells you that catchers can play the long game over many batters a lot more effectively than a batter who has only his own plate appearance to worry about.
MLB Preseason Power Rankings: Which team starts our 2026 rankings on top? - The Athletic
For years, rival executives have painted A.J. Preller and the Padres as Wile E. Coyote chasing the Road Runner: the team may have run off the cliff, flinging around nine-figure contracts and trading away prized prospects, but as long as they don’t look down, they can keep going. Well, don’t expect Preller to look down just yet. The Padres did not make major additions this past winter. Their most expensive contract was a $75 million reunion with pitcher Michael King, which could end up being only a one-year contract. Their pitching depth is a bit shallow. But they still employ Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado. Last year’s midseason acquisition of Mason Miller improved an already excellent bullpen. And Preller won’t be shying away from bold moves any time soon.
Odds & Ends
NCAA tournament Sweet 16: Re-ranking the men’s contenders by championship potential - Yahoo Sports
What makes Michigan so lethal is more than just its positional size. The Wolverines overwhelm opponents because of how seamlessly their pieces fit together. Over the course of 12 days last spring, Dusty May assembled a title contender via the transfer portal, adding skilled 7-foot-3 center Aday Mara; rim runner, rebounder and interior defender Morez Johnson; do-it-all 6-9 forward Yaxel Lendeborg; and pass-first playmaker Elliot Cadeau. That quartet has carried the Wolverines to 33 wins, including routs of Howard and Saint Louis to open NCAA tournament play.
Carlos Alcaraz Is Getting Tired Of Facing So Many Roger Federers - Defector
This wasn’t the erratic Carlitos that sporadically rears its head in moments of burnout; Alcaraz played a focused match and fought back from the cusp of defeat. The 25-year-old Korda simply played the best match of his career.
As it turns out, a lot of tennis players seem to be delivering the match of their careers when pitted against Alcaraz lately. That is, of course, one’s lot in life as as the top men’s player on the planet. The lesser opponent steps onto the court with minimal pressure and commits to an uncharacteristically aggressive game plan, because going on court and playing at his normal level would be futile. That’s what makes, say, Novak Djokovic so miraculous: the way he absorbed the best efforts of so many generations of tennis players, most of them playing at full tilt, over the better part of two decades, with only rare hiccups.
Alcaraz is only 22 years old and already having to get used to this lifestyle.
WNBA salaries set to top $1M: How new CBA transforms player pay - The Athletic
The spike in players’ salaries has never looked so sharp. Think of it this way: Incoming rookie Azzi Fudd’s minimum WNBA salary in 2026 will be more than eight-year veteran guard Kelsey Mitchell made on a super-maximum salary in 2025. The upcoming season’s maximum salary of $1.4 million, expected to be earned by stars like A’ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, will individually be only $100,000 less than any WNBA team’s entire salary cap last season and more than any cap before 2023.
Tiger Woods to make 2026 Jupiter Links debut in TGL finals - ESPN
Tiger Woods will be back swinging a golf club competitively Tuesday night, and it couldn’t come at a better time for his Jupiter Links TGL team.
Woods told ESPN that he will play in Match 2 of the best-of-three TGL finals (7 p.m. ET, ESPN, ESPN App), a decision he publicized after Jupiter Links lost a 6-5 nail-biter to Los Angeles in the opener Monday night in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.
Woods heads the Jupiter team but has sat out all season as he recovers from October back surgery. Jupiter had been using Akshay Bhatia as an alternate, but Bhatia is playing the Hero Indian Open this week in New Delhi on the European tour.
Tottenham Keeps Finding New Lows - Defector
The defeat to Forest is just the latest indignity in what has turned from a nightmare season into something even more horrific. Since I last checked on on Tottenham, things have only gotten worse, and it is only by the grace of West Ham’s own faltering form that even now, after the latest embarrassment in this Spursy Century of Humiliation-ass season, Tottenham is still clinging to safety by a fingernail, one point (and a sizable goal difference advantage) above the Hammers.
Border Report: A Taco Lover’s Dream - Voice of San Diego
I heard about Tijuana’s Taco Museum soon after it opened almost two years ago, but it was only last week that I finally made it inside for the first time.
Situated in the hub of Tijuana tourism along Avenida Revolución, the museum celebrates all of the ingredients that come together to make tacos the food that so many people love. Gamsan Group, which also owns Telefónica Gastro Park, opened the museum in April 2024.
“They made the museum to give recognition to one of the typical dishes of Mexico which is the taco,” said Miguel Aguayo, general manager of the museum. “The taco in all of its different modalities that exist from Baja California to Yucatan Merida.”