A three-run rally in the bottom of the eighth inning Sunday lifted the San Diego Padres to a 4-2 win over the visiting Chicago White Sox, moving the winners within a victory of a National League playoff spot and the losers into a tie for history of the worst kind.
Chicago (36-120) equaled the 1962 New York Mets’ single-season loss total, the worst in modern MLB history. One loss in the final six games will evict the Mets from the record books.
How the White Sox lost this one was on brand for their season. Ahead 2-1 with six outs left to get, they instead gave it up in a hurry. Donovan Solano doubled to lead off the inning and pinch-hitter Luis Arraez doubled against reliever Fraser Ellard (2-3) to plate pinch-runner Tyler Wade.
Brandon Lockridge pinch-ran for Arraez and got to third via a wild pitch, then scored easily on Jurickson Profar’s sacrifice fly to right that snapped the tie. Fernando Tatis Jr. capped the inning with a solo homer to left-center, his 20th of the year.
Jeremiah Estrada (6-2) pitched a clean eighth inning for the win as San Diego improved to 90-66, marking its first 90-win season since 2010 and the fifth in franchise history. The Padres moved three games ahead of Arizona, a 10-9 loser in Milwaukee, for the NL’s top wild-card spot.
They crept within 2 ½ games of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West, pending the outcome of their game with Colorado. San Diego, whose magic number to clinch a playoff spot fell to one, starts a three-game series in Los Angeles on Tuesday night.
Korey Lee gave Chicago a 1-0 lead in the top of the third by lining a solo homer to left, his 11th of the year. Profar equalized in the bottom of the inning with a solo shot to left-center, his 24th of the season.
Miguel Vargas broke the deadlock in the sixth with a one-out blast to left-center that traveled an estimated 404 feet, his fifth of the year.
Rookie Sean Burke worked six innings for the White Sox, permitting only two hits and a run with one walk and eight strikeouts. Yu Darvish pitched 6 1/3 innings for the Padres, yielding three hits and two runs with no walks and nine strikeouts.
Darvish recorded his 2,000th MLB strikeout to end the third, getting Luis Robert to look at a third strike. He is the first Japanese-born pitcher to reach the milestone.