SAN DIEGO — Nick Pivetta came back after nearly five months and pitched like it was a year ago.

The right-hander with a tenuous right elbow worked five scoreless innings on Monday, and the Padres held on for a 3-2 victory over the Nationals.

That was about as good as could be expected from a guy who was shut down with an elbow flexor strain after his April 12 start, did not throw a ball for six weeks and made just three rehab appearances.

It was on Aug. 4 that Pivetta walked off the mound in his first inning pitching for Single-A Lake Elsinore and did not pitch again for three weeks.

His starting Monday was somewhere between a sure thing and a flier.

Other than being in a predicament in which every victory is precious, there really was no harm in seeing what Pivetta could do.

The reality is Pivetta’s elbow could require surgery at any time. Or he could pitch for years without needing a procedure.

He pitched well in Triple-A and recovered quickly and strongly.

So if he was ready, the Padres were ready.

“One is, you’ve got to see what’s up, and it’s at that point in the season,” Padres manager Craig Stammen said before the game. “And he personally felt very confident in how he was feeling, how he was throwing the ball. I think that probably swayed our decision more than anything. And then his ability in Triple-A to have had a couple good outings, to where he looked sharp, he looked crisp, passed the eye test, passed the video test and felt comfortable this is a good spot for him.”

On a day that was anything but comfortable — the 91 degree temperature at first pitch was two degrees off the record for a Padres game at Petco Park set in 2015 — Pivetta hardly labored.

He retired 15 of the 17 batters he faced before being pulled with the Padres ahead 3-0.

Dylan Crews’ two-run homer off Kyle Hart with two outs in the sixth made the game closer than it appeared it would be at the start.

But Bradgley Rodriguez, Adrian Morejón and Mason Miller each worked a scoreless inning at the end.

The Padres won a second straight game for the first time since they swept three games from the Twins from Aug. 21-23, and that kept them a half-game behind the Diamondbacks in the race for the National League’s final wild-card spot.

It was an early burst of offense and Pivetta that put them in position.

He looked like the guy who last season anchored the Padres’ rotation with a career-best 2.87 ERA in a career-low 181 2/3 innings.

With more of a buildup, it was the type of game he might have gone seven innings. His 62 pitches were two fewer than he had thrown in his start in Triple-A last week.

Pivetta took nine pitches to get through the first inning.

After Nationals right fielder James Wood lost what would be ruled a double and Jackson Merrill drove him in with a single, Pivetta had a 1-0 lead when he took the mound a second time.

He would go on to retire the first seven batters he faced before Jorbit Vivas lined a single to left field with one out in the third inning.

A two-out double required him to strand two runners in scoring position, and his reward was a 3-0 lead to start the fourth.

The two runs in the bottom of the third also involved Machado, whose single scored Fernando Tatis Jr., and Merrill, whose single scored Machado.

____

©2026 The San Diego Union-Tribune. Visit sandiegouniontribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.