What the Padres' top three arms need to do in the upcoming road series against the Yankees

After being consistently left out of the conversation as the best team in MLB, the Padres have a chance to truly stake their claim in the conversation against a Yankees team that stands alone in the American League.

To kick off the series, offseason steal Nick Pivetta takes the mound against his old divisional rival with a chance to change his own narrative. Despite a Cy Young-level start to 2025, Pivetta has had his problems in the Bronx. In his career against the Yankees, Pivetta holds a 6.99 ERA. It’s very clear that he has hit a different stride as a pitcher this season, as he has dominated to the tune of a 1.78 ERA over the first month of this season.

There is definitely reason for optimism in Pivetta on Monday evening, the main source being that he has largely cut home runs entirely out of his game. That is a huge factor against a Yankees team that seems to be launching balls into the stratosphere on a daily basis. Overall, the Yankees are the biggest test Pivetta will face s far in 2025, as they rank first in FanGraphs’ team batting statistic. The Cubs, who rank second, found mixed success against Pivetta in his two starts against them this season. Nevertheless, he held them to 3 runs across 10 innings and was dominant throughout outside of a poor second inning in their first matchup.

If Pivetta can continue to prevent solid contact (80.1 percent of his batted balls have been either fly outs or ground balls), his chances to finally find success against the Yankees are high come Monday Night.

The second matchup of the series features a homecoming for Michael King, as this will be his first start against the Yankees since his arrival in San Diego. Michael King has been a phenom this season, using a diverse pitch mix (he throws his sinker, fastball, slider, and changeup all at least 20 percent of the time) to keep batters guessing and overall, much like Pivetta, avoiding the home run. While his strikeout numbers have not been jaw-dropping, he has limited his walks much better this season than he had throughout his career in New York.

His overall command of his pitches has transitioned him into one of the best starters in the entire National League, and if he can shine against the Yankees on national television come Tuesday, the campaign for him to start in the Fall Classic will officially begin in San Diego and beyond.

Perhaps the most cautionary start comes in the potential rubber match of the series, as Dylan Cease will wrap things up in New York on Wednesday. While seemingly the entire Padres' roster has started hot this season, Cease has pitched his way to a 5.61 ERA so far in 2025, with the exclamation point coming in the form of a nine-run outing against the Athletics. And while Cease has clearly not been the same pitcher he was last season, his ERA has been a solid 3.60 in the games excluding the disaster in Oakland (well, Sacramento).

Cease has admitted to his struggles recently, telling the San Diego Union-Tribune's Kevin Acee "I think I’ve kind of narrowed it down to something mechanical, so I’m working on it." He went on to explain that his slider has come back to what he wants, and he has allowed two earned runs in four consecutive starts. So while he has avoided losing the Padres games on his own, he has also failed to see the 7th inning in any of those previous four starts.

So in the middle of starting to find his stride, Cease faces the Yankees in what feels like a true test as to where the ace can go in 2025. If he can continue his streak of steady, albeit uninspiring, starts, he may truly be on the right path and fixing the mechanical issues that have plagued him on and off so far this season.

The Padres' offense and bullpen have maintained their reliability throughout the season, and if the three aces can find success against the Yankees this week, the Padres will have shown they are truly in the same tier that the Dodgers and Yankees currently reside in, or even above them.