OK, Mike Tauchman didn’t rob a homer tonight as he did in the photo above. But check out the videos of the plays he did make, which were pretty much the only reason to watch this game from a Sox fan point of view.
First, off Luis Arráez in the third inning of a 1-1 game:
That was a real heads-up double play, too.
Then in the fourth, Sox up, 2-1:
And then, just for fun, after the Padres had broken it open with a four-run sixth and had two on with two outs:
Nothing but net. And ball. Not bad for an old
guy.
For those of you who prefer offense, the Sox scored in the first on a Colson Montgomery single and Miguel Vargas double. They scored on a similar sequence in the third, on a Chase Meidroth single and Kyle Teel double to retake that 2-1 lead.
Those runs were off Yu Darvish, who gave way to the excellent Padres bullpen, so the Sox took the rest of the night off, wasting a couple of leadoff singles that were their only hits until Lenyn Sosa got a fastball right over the middle of the plate on a 3-1 count with two outs in the ninth and sent it 108 mph the other way:
As for pitching, Yoendris Gómez did OK, walking none, striking out four, just giving up a solo homer to Jackson Merrill in the second — that is, until he suffered White Sox pitcher disease in the sixth and gave up a single to Fernando Tatís Jr. then wild-pitched him to second and let him steal third by by lousy runner management.
Tatís was knocked in, Gómez was knocked out, and in came Fraser Ellard to show how not to pitch. Ellard tossed two wild pitches, walked three and surrendered a three-run double to Ryan O’Hearn and the game was basically over with the Sox down, 5-2. Cam Booser and Wikelman González also gave up runs later in the game, but that was just to help the Padres’ season run differential.
The loss takes the Sox season record to 58-97, so they need to win five of their final seven games to avoid the magical 100-loss accomplishment. Next chance to elude a third straight year of infamy will be the series finale with San Diego tomorrow afternoon, the last home game of the season.
