Friday night’s baseball game at Petco Park wasn’t particularly good, which is somewhat what you might expect considering the 2024 White Sox were in it.
But the Padres are headed to the playoffs.
But Friday will not slow this march down, in fact it will bring it two steps closer.
But a 3-2 win in 10 innings over what could be considered the worst team in major league history also left them in a worrying predicament.
Before Fernando Tatis Jr. won the game on a double by Brandon Lockridge from second base, Robert Suarez made the win necessary when he allowed a home run from Lenin Sosa to score two runs in the ninth inning.
It was the third time in his last six games that he allowed a game-tying hit or leadoff goal in the ninth inning, and the fifth time in his last 10 that he allowed at least one goal.
The Padres will have to decide if now is the right time to go to Tanner Scott as their closer or hope Suarez can figure some things out.
“It’s going to be looked at,” San Diego Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “We have three good guys in the backfield, and we’ll continue to look at it. … I think he should be able to incorporate something else every now and then with the right-handed guys.”
“These are things that happen in games,” Suarez said. “At the end of the day, we won the game. So that’s all that matters.”
And as Tatis stepped up and hit the second ball from substitute pitcher Justin Anderson into the gap in right field, the Padres ended up celebrating in front of their fans and soaking their clubhouse carpet with champagne.
With eight games remaining in the regular season, the Padres are now any combination of wins and three Braves losses away from securing a postseason spot. That means that could happen as soon as Sunday’s final home game.
Once the Padres got rid of Garrett Crochet — or more accurately, once Crochet reached his innings ceiling for the night — they started to look like the team that leads the major leagues in batting average.
Three two-out hits broke a scoreless tie in the sixth inning when singles from Jurickson Profar and Manny Machado were followed, then a double from Jackson Merrill into shallow right-center field against an outfielder playing backward.
Up to that point, the Padres had been playing the way a team had to play to lose to the White Sox, who, at 36-118, were two losses away from tying the 1962 Mets’ MLB record of 120 losses in a season.
The White Sox were able to get runners off the corners in the first inning when center fielder Xander Bogaerts made an error that led to two outs. They also managed to get a double in the fifth after Machado hit a backhand at least 8½ out of 10 times. In the bottom of the fifth, Bogaerts was picked off first after he made a move to second.
But while the Padres were still in the first half, they were closing in on the playoffs, as that was the moment the Braves’ loss to the Marlins was complete.
The Mets suffered a big loss in Philadelphia, which meant they lost a game behind the Diamondbacks, who won in Milwaukee to stay two games behind the Padres in the race for the National League wild card.
Until the ninth inning, the game was mostly well-played, which was to be expected when the starting pitchers were Crochet and Joe Musgrove.
Musgrove ended up finishing six scoreless innings, allowing just three hits and striking out nine before Jason Adam and Scott completed a scoreless inning each. Adrian Morejon also completed a scoreless inning in the top of the 10th.
In four innings, Musgrove recorded six strikeouts and allowed two hits. He was the second-leading pitcher in the match.
It’s been a while since a visiting pitcher was better than Crochet on the mound at Petco Park for as long as he was allowed to go on Friday.
The left-handed fighter knocked out the team in the second and fourth rounds, and scored a total of eight knockouts over four rounds, which he completed in just 52 throws.
Fortunately for Padres, he operates within strict limits.
Crochet, who was widely considered the best pitcher in the majors for two months earlier this season, is in his first season as a full-time starting pitcher. Having long surpassed his peak in previous innings, the White Sox have been reducing his workload over the past two months.
He has not thrown more than 57 balls in any of his past six games and has not pitched more than four innings in his past 12 games, dating back to July 6.
He didn’t show the same dominance in limited innings, posting a 5.89 ERA in 36⅔ innings in the 11 starts he had before Friday’s game. But he struck out Tatis and Machado twice each and didn’t allow a hard ball to play. A single by Jake Cronenworth in the third was the only hit the Padres threw against him.
The Padres recorded nine more hits against the six relief players who followed Crochet. The last of those hits meant two more wins for the White Sox and one loss for the Braves over the next two days to secure a playoff spot.
“It would be awesome,” Tatis said of the home win. “We want it to be that way. Obviously baseball is always tough, but we’ll find a way to do it as quickly as possible.”
Originally published:
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