List of San Diego Padres Opening Day starting pitchers

The San Diego Padres are an American professional baseball team based in San Diego. The Padres compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) West Division. The Padres first played their home games at San Diego Stadium until 2004, when they moved into Petco Park.^[1] The first game of the new baseball season for a team is played on Opening Day, and being named the Opening Day starter is an honor, which is often given to the player who is expected to lead the pitching staff that season,^[2] though there are various strategic reasons why a team's best pitcher might not start on Opening Day.^[3] The Padres have used 24 different Opening Day starting pitchers in their 42 seasons. The 24 starters have a combined Opening Day record of 15 wins, 14 losses and 13 no decisions. No decisions are only awarded to the starting pitcher if the game is won or lost after the starting pitcher has left the game.

Jake Peavy, the Opening Day starting pitcher 2006–09

The Padres' first Opening Day starting pitcher was Dick Selma, who received a win against the Houston Astros. Randy Jones, Eric Show and Jake Peavy tie the Padres' record for most Opening Day starts with four. Peavy has the most consecutive Opening Day starts with four (2006–2009). Jones and Andy Benes each have had three consecutive Opening Day starts. Benes has the most consecutive Opening Day losses with three from 1993 to 1995.

Overall, the Padres' Opening Day starting pitchers have a record of eight wins and five losses at San Diego Stadium and two wins and one loss at Petco Park. Although the Padres were nominally the home team on Opening Day 1999, the game was played in Estadio de Béisbol Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico.^[4] The Padres' Opening Day starting pitchers' combined home record is 11 wins and six losses, and their away record is four wins and eight losses. The Padres went on to play in the MLB post-season five times, winning the National League Championship Series (NLCS) in 1984 and 1998.^[5] In those five seasons, the Opening Day starting pitchers had a combined record of three wins and 0 losses.

Key

Petco Park, the team's home stadium since 2004

Season	Each year is linked to an article about that particular Padres season.
W	Win
L	Loss
ND (W)	No decision by starting pitcher; Padres won game
ND (L)	No decision by starting pitcher; Padres lost game
Final score (#)	Game score with Padres runs listed first; extra innings are in brackets
Location	Stadium in bold for home game
Pitcher (#)	Number of appearances as Opening Day starter with the Padres
*	Advanced to the post-season
**	Won the National League Championship Series

Pitchers

Andy Benes, the Opening Day starting pitcher in 1993, 1994, and 1995

Season	Pitcher	Decision	Final score	Opponent	Location	Attendance	Ref.[6][7]
1969	Dick Selma	W	2–1	Houston Astros	San Diego Stadium	23,370	[8]
1970	Pat Dobson	W	8–3	Atlanta Braves	San Diego Stadium	25,125	[9]
1971	Tom Phoebus	L	0–4	San Francisco Giants	San Diego Stadium	34,554	[10]
1972	Clay Kirby	W	6–5	Atlanta Braves	San Diego Stadium	16,655	[11]
1973	Clay Kirby (2)	W	4–2	Los Angeles Dodgers	San Diego Stadium	32,019	[12]
1974	Bill Greif	L	0–8	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	31,566	[13]
1975	Randy Jones	ND (L)	0–2 (10)	San Francisco Giants	San Diego Stadium	17,670	[14]
1976	Randy Jones (2)	W	8–2	Atlanta Braves	San Diego Stadium	44,728	[15]
1977	Randy Jones (3)	L	3–5	Cincinnati Reds	Riverfront Stadium	51,937	[16]
1978	Gaylord Perry	ND (W)	3–2	San Francisco Giants	Candlestick Park	36,131	[17]
1979	Gaylord Perry (2)	W	4–3	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	46,536	[18]
1980	Randy Jones (4)	W	6–4	San Francisco Giants	San Diego Stadium	29,535	[19]
1981	John Curtis	ND (W)	4–1	San Francisco Giants	Candlestick Park	54,520	[20]
1982	Juan Eichelberger	L	0–1	Atlanta Braves	Jack Murphy Stadium	30,188	[21]
1983	Tim Lollar	W	16–13	San Francisco Giants	Candlestick Park	50,542	[22]
1984**	Eric Show	W	5–1	Pittsburgh Pirates	Jack Murphy Stadium	44,553	[23]
1985	LaMarr Hoyt	ND (L)	3–4	San Francisco Giants	Candlestick Park	52,714	[24]
1986	Eric Show (2)	L	1–2	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	49,444	[25]
1987	Eric Show (3)	ND (L)	3–4 (12)	San Francisco Giants	Candlestick Park	52,020	[26]
1988	Ed Whitson	ND (L)	3–6	Houston Astros	Astrodome	39,906	[27]
1989	Eric Show (4)	L	3–5	San Francisco Giants	Jack Murphy Stadium	52,763	[28]
1990	Bruce Hurst	L	2–4	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	48,686	[29]
1991	Ed Whitson (2)	ND (W)	7–4	San Francisco Giants	Jack Murphy Stadium	48,089	[30]
1992	Bruce Hurst (2)	ND (W)	4–3	Cincinnati Reds	Riverfront Stadium	55,356	[31]
1993	Andy Benes	L	4–9	Pittsburgh Pirates	Three Rivers Stadium	44,103	[32]
1994	Andy Benes (2)	L	1–4	Atlanta Braves	Jack Murphy Stadium	42,251	[33]
1995	Andy Benes (3)	L	2–10	Houston Astros	Jack Murphy Stadium	41,961	[34]
1996*	Andy Ashby	ND (L)	4–5 (10)	Chicago Cubs	Wrigley Field	38,734	[35]
1997	Joey Hamilton	W	12–5	New York Mets	Jack Murphy Stadium	43,005	[36]
1998**	Kevin Brown	W	10–2	Cincinnati Reds	Cinergy Field	54,578	[37]
1999	Andy Ashby (2)	L	2–8	Colorado Rockies	Estadio de Béisbol Monterrey	27,104	[4]
2000	Sterling Hitchcock	ND (L)	1–2	New York Mets	Shea Stadium	52,308	[38]
2001	Woody Williams	L	2–3	San Francisco Giants	Pacific Bell Park	40,930	[39]
2002	Kevin Jarvis	ND (W)	0–2	Arizona Diamondbacks	Chase Field	47,025	[40]
2003	Brian Lawrence	ND (L)	2–5	San Francisco Giants	Qualcomm Stadium	61,707	[41]
2004	Brian Lawrence (2)	W	8–2	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	53,850	[42]
2005*	Woody Williams (2)	ND (L)	10–12	Colorado Rockies	Coors Field	47,661	[43]
2006*	Jake Peavy	W	6–1	San Francisco Giants	Petco Park	43,767	[44]
2007	Jake Peavy (2)	W	7–0	San Francisco Giants	AT&T Park	42,773	[45]
2008	Jake Peavy (3)	W	4–0	Houston Astros	Petco Park	44,965	[46]
2009	Jake Peavy (4)	L	1–4	Los Angeles Dodgers	Petco Park	45,496	[47]
2010	Jon Garland	L	3–6	Arizona Diamondbacks	Chase Field	49,192	[48]
2011	Tim Stauffer	ND (W)	5–3	St. Louis Cardinals	Busch Stadium	46,368	[49]
2012	Edinson Volquez	L	3–5	Los Angeles Dodgers	Petco Park	42,941	[50]
2013	Edinson Volquez (2)	L	2–11	New York Mets	Citi Field	41,053	[51]
2014	Andrew Cashner	ND (W)	3–1	Los Angeles Dodgers	Petco Park	45,567	[52]
2015	James Shields	ND (L)	3–6	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	53,518	[53]
2016	Tyson Ross	L	0–15	Los Angeles Dodgers	Petco Park	44,317	[54]
2017	Jhoulys Chacín	L	3–14	Los Angeles Dodgers	Dodger Stadium	53,701	[55]
2018	Clayton Richard	ND (L)	1–2 (12)	Milwaukee Brewers	Petco Park	44,659	[56]
2019	Eric Lauer	W	2–0	San Francisco Giants	Petco Park	44,655	[57]
2020*	Chris Paddack	W	7–2	Arizona Diamondbacks	Petco Park	0	[58]
2021	Yu Darvish	ND (W)	8–7	Arizona Diamondbacks	Petco Park	10,350	[59]
2022*	Yu Darvish (2)	ND (L)	2–4	Arizona Diamondbacks	Chase Field	35,508	[60]
2023	Blake Snell	L	2–7	Colorado Rockies	Petco Park	45,103	[61]
2024*	Yu Darvish (3)	ND (L)	2–5	Los Angeles Dodgers	Gocheok Sky Dome	15,952	[62]
2025	Michael King	ND (W)	7–4	Atlanta Braves	Petco Park	45,568	[63]