Let’s get rockin’ and rollin’, y’all!
After the Atlanta Braves ended their turbulent 2024 season in San Diego, Petco Park will be where their 2025 season begins. The Braves are set to tangle with the San Diego Padres for a four-game series in beautiful San Diego to start off their season.
For the Braves, this serves as a way to get a hollow form of revenge for what happened when they essentially crawled into the Postseason last year. In addition to winning the season series 4-3, the Padres basically put Atlanta out of their misery with a two-game sweep in the Wild Card Series. With that being said, Chris Sale was unable to pitch either of the two Wild Card games. He’s healthy and ready to go for this series, so there’s that.
This also serves as the “return” to Petco Park for Ju rickson Profar. Technically, it’s hard to call it a return since this is the first game of the season but the point is that Profar is now going to get an opportunity to show the Padres what they’re missing out on now that he’s signed with the Braves.
In fact, the Padres are heading into Opening Day without having done a lot over the course of the offseason. Their biggest signing was picking up Nick Pivetta on a four-year, $55 million deal and this was only after Manny Machado publicly expressed disappointment in their slow offseason. I don’t know why he’s upset — the Padres signed Jason Heyward, after all!
In al seriousness, these are two teams who essentially chose to run it back in 2025 and I’ll leave it up to y’all to decide why they did so. For now, they’re set to engage in a four-game series to start off the series and there will be plenty of eyes on this series as well, since the two weekend games will both be nationally televised.
All stats from 2024 unless noted
Thursday, March 27, 4:10 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports SO/SE)
LHP Chris Sale (29 GS, 177.2 IP, 2.38 ERA, 57 ERA-, 2.09 FIP, 53 FIP-, 6.4 fWAR)
The reigning NL Cy Young Award winner is set to make his sixth career Opening Day start and his first since 2019. Sadly, that start all the way back in 2019 didn’t go too well as the Mariners tagged him for seven runs in just three innings of work. Sale went on to have a pretty good season but I’d imagine that we’d all rather that he just storm out of the gates here in 2025.
Sale faced the Padres twice in the regular season last year and he befuddled them on two separate occasions — he went seven innings and struck out nine without giving up a hit on May 20 in Atlanta, while he went five innings and only gave up one run when they faced off in San Diego right before last season’s All-Star break. If Sale picks up where he left off (in more ways that one) then the Braves should have the upper hand on Opening Day.
RHP Michael King (30 GS, 173.2 IP, 2.95 ERA, 75 ERA-, 3.33 FIP, 83 FIP- 3.9 fWAR)
Michael King spent his first season in San Diego thriving, as he ended up having a career season and you can just look at his stats above. While the Braves didn’t see King at all during the regular season, he certainly made his presence felt in the NL Wild Card Series, as he opened up that series with a whopping 12 strikeouts over seven innings pitched. Needless to say, the Braves will absolutely have to do better if they’re going have a good chance at keeping their hopes and dreams of going 162-0 in 2025 alive.
Friday, March 28, 9:40 p.m. ET (FanDuel Sports SO/SE)
RHP Reynaldo López (25 GS, 135.2 IP, 1.99 ERA, 48 ERA-, 2.92 FIP, 74 FIP-, 3.5 fWAR)
Reynaldo López had himself a great season in 2024 where he broke out and surged towards the top of Atlanta’s rotation. The big question now is can he do it again here in 2025. The workload he took on in 2024 was easily the most innings that he’d thrown in a season since 2019 and he had a somewhat shaky spring training where his velocity wasn’t exactly where you wanted to see it. The obvious hope is that López will be able to put it all together now that the regular season is here.
RHP Dylan Cease (33 GS, 189.1 IP, 3.47 ERA, 88 ERA-, 3.10 FIP, 77 FIP-, 4.8 fWAR)
Dylan Cease is getting the ball on Friday night and while Michael King may have exploded onto the scene with his efforts last season, Cease is true to this and not new to this. He’s put up four straight seasons of at least 3.5 fWAR and three of those seasons he’s cleared 4 fWAR, so he’s been pretty doggone consistent and now the Padres are reaping the rewards.
Cease certainly dominated the Braves when he saw them at Petco Park on July 13 when he pitched six shutout innings and struck out 11 batters but he did get lit up bythe Braves on May 20 last season, when Matt Olson and Marcell Ozuna both hit dingers off of him on their way to scoring five runs over four innings against him. Obviously we’re rooting for the latter to happen instead of the former.
Saturday, March 29, 7:15 p.m. ET (FOX)
RHP Spencer Schwellenbach (21 GS, 123.2 IP, 3.35 ERA, 80 ERA-, 3.29 FIP, 83 FIP-, 2.6 fWAR)
Spencer Schwellenbach was yet another revelation on the mound, as the rookie hurler for the Braves seized a rotation spot and became one of the rookie sensations of 2024. While he won’t be taking anybody by surprise in 2025, it’s still difficult to deal with a hurler who can throw as many pitches at a high level that Schwellenbach can. Additionally, his last start in Petco Park went very well as he pitched seven strong innings while only giving up one run. We’ll gladly take that again this weekend.
TBD
While we don’t know for sure who this is going to be, we do know that there are two possible choices here: It’ll either be LHP Kyle Hart or RHP Randy Vásquez. Thanks to injuries and strong performances in spring training, those two pitched their way into a rotation spot to start the season.
With all due respect to both of them, they aren’t nearly as imposing as the two starters that the Padres will have going to start this series. Vásquez made 20 starts last season and finished with a 4.87 ERA, a 4.90 ERA and 0.8 fWAR, while Kyle Hart last pitched in MLB in 2020 and spent last season in Korea with the NC Dinos. With that being said, if the Braves learned anything from last season, it’s that no pitcher should be taken lightly and whoever the Padres go with in this game should be taken just as seriously as King or cease.
Sunday, March 30, 7:15 p.m. ET (ESPN)
RHP AJ Smith-Shawver (Career 6 GS 29.2 IP, 3.64 ERA, 83 ERA-, 6.11 FIP, 143 FIP-)
The last time AJ Smith-Shawver pitched in Petco Park, he was busy getting lit up by Fernando Tatis Jr. and friends after having spent the vast majority of his 2024 season pitching for the Gwinnett Stripes in Triple-A. This time, Smith-Shawver has pitched himself into Atlanta’s rotation and should hopefully be fully prepared for what big league hitting is all about. He’s had limited big league experience so far but the Braves believe that he’s ready for action now. We’ll see if he’s ready as the eyes of the baseball world will be placed squarely upon him on Sunday Night Baseball.
RHP Nick Pivetta (26 GS, 145.2 IP, 4.14 ERA, 97 ERA-, 4.07 FIP, 99 FIP-)
As I mentioned earlier, the Padres are coming into this season with Nick Pivetta being the crown jewel of their offseason dealings. While Pivetta is a perfectly fine pitcher, you don’t exactly want him to be described as the “crown jewel.” With that being said, Pivetta has had his fair share of bumpy starts against the Braves in the past — including just las season when the Braves got him for five runs over four innings on May 8. With that being said, Pivetta had the last laugh on June 5 when he delivered what was arguably the best start of his season last year with seven innings of shutout ball against the Braves at Fenway Park. Let’s hope that the Braves (and Marcell Ozuna in particular) can recapture what was successful against Pivetta over the years.