Padres survive White Sox with 3-2 victory

Kevin Acee, The San Diego Union-Tribune on Sep 21, 2025

Published in Baseball

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CHICAGO — On the San Diego Padres’ slow walk to the postseason, they were almost waylaid once again by the walk.

But their pitchers exploited enough batters on an inexperienced team that is now two losses from 100 for the season, and the Padres held on for a 3-2 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Sunday.

The Padres looked as uninspired Sunday as they have in so many games as they have run in place to the precipice of a postseason berth.

They scored two runs in the second inning and one in the third and then seemed content to let their starting pitcher and vaunted bullpen do the rest of the work.

That almost didn’t work out.

Three of the six Padres pitchers who appeared in Sunday’s game walked multiple batters and combined to walk nine batters in all.

Michael King got out of the first two jams his lack of command helped create and was rescued by Adrian Morejón the third time.

Mason Miller could not do the same for Kyle Hart, as both relievers walked a pair of batters in a two-run seventh inning for the White Sox.

Wandy Peralta worked a scoreless eighth, despite walking a batter with one out, and Robert Suarez retired the White Sox in order in the ninth.

The Padres playing in the postseason has been virtually assured for more than a week. The analytics site FanGraphs listed their postseason probability at 99.3% on Aug. 24.

But they are 11-15 since then despite playing 16 of those 26 games against teams with losing records. That includes the Rockies and White Sox, the teams with the two worst records in MLB.

It has been a collective effort, thought their starting pitchers’ 5.45 ERA over the 24 games leading up to Sunday played a big role in the backward stroll to October.

King was making just his third start in that span and his fourth start in four months.

He got in trouble right away in each of the first two innings, and then he immediately got out of trouble.

A hit batter and a walk started the bottom of the first before King got a strikeout and a double play on a total of five pitches.

A single and a walk began the second before a three-pitch strikeout, pop up on the first pitch and fly-ball on the first pitch.

Between those two innings and immediately after, the Padres amassed a 3-0 lead.

The first two runs came on three singles and an error in the second inning.

Jackson Merrill led off the second with a single and moved to third on Gavin Sheets’ one-out single. With Ryan O’Hearn up, both runners advanced when White Sox starter Sean Burke’s pick-off throw to first base sailed a little wide and rolled to the side wall. After O’Hearn struck out on the 10th pitch of his at-bat, Jake Cronenworth drove in Sheets with a single flared into center field.

Fernando Tatis Jr. made it 3-0 with a home run on the first pitch of the third inning.

Luis Arraez followed Tatis’ blast with a single, but the Padres reached base just three more times through the sixth inning.

That is when a game seemingly on cruise control got off course for King and the Padres.

King had retired 11 of the 14 batters he faced between the second and fifth innings, taking just 40 pitches to do so.

But he walked off the mound with the bases loaded and no outs after two singles and a walk. Morejón took 12 pitches to get two strikeouts and a pop out.

Kyle Hart began the seventh inning, yielded a pop fly double and walked two batters around a strikeout. Mason Miller took over with the bases full and walked in two runs before ending the inning.

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