The Padres beat the White Sox 3-2 on Sunday afternoon at Rate Field in their final road game of the year. Well, their final REGULA SEASON road game of the year. The win drops San Diego’s Magic Number to 2 with six games left to play, all at Petco Park, a place where they’re 21 games over .500 this year.
Basically, it’s a foregone conclusion they’ll make it to the postseason. The question is, when can we start the party at Petco? The answer to that grew a little more complicated over the last few days. We’ll explain after a brief recap of Sunday’s festivities on the South Side.
The Padres scored a pair of runs in the 2nd inning thanks to an errant pickoff throw by Sean Burke and a Jake Cronenworth RBI single, then got another in the 3rd when Fernando Tatis Jr. ripped a solo home run. Potentially the best news of the day is Michael King showed marked improvement.
The right-hander went 5.0 shutout innings, striking out four and walking four more to show he might be ready for a postseason start. He left the 6th inning with the bases loaded and nobody out and got a huge assist from Adrian Morejon. The All-Star lefty stranded all three runners with a pair of strikeouts and a popup.
Now, what does all this mean for the coming days? Good question. The Reds completed a four-game sweep of the Cubs while the Mets were losing in extra innings to the Nationals, and since the Friars own the tiebreaker with New York, the Padres can secure a playoff spot with just one more win.
That means Monday night’s game against the Brewers at Petco Park could be a massive party Downtown. If San Diego wins, they are officially playing October baseball for the second straight season. It’s gonna be a fun pitching matchup with Nick Pivetta on the mound against Freddy Peralta.