SAN DIEGO — Davis Martin recorded a career high for strikeouts, Eloy Jimenez homered and Yoan Moncada had three hits, lifting the White Sox past the Padres 3-1 for their second straight victory.
The Sox (78-79) need to win four of their last five games to finish above .500 and three of five to finish 81-81. The Padres (86-71) are playing for higher stakes with a magic number of three to secure their first trip to the postseason in a full 162-game schedule since 2006.
“You could feel it coming into it,” Martinsaid. “It’s the games you want to pitch in. It’s the games that are most fun. Walking out and kind of looking around, did a little 360 real quick, you realize this is as close to playoff baseball as we are going to find. It was a blast, a lot of fun.”
Martin (3-5, 3.64 ERA) struck out a career high eight batters over 5 2⁄3 innings of one-run ball, walking none.
“I had confidence in a lot of different pitches. All four of them,” Martin said.
Aaron Bummer struck out Juan Soto looking with two runners on in the seventh to get Kendall Graveman out of a jam, Jimmy Lambert (two strikeouts) pitched a scoreless eighth and Liam Hendriks worked a perfect ninth for his 35th save. Sox pitchers fanned Padres hitters 15 times.
“There were a lot of people here, it was like a playoff atmosphere,” acting manager Miguel Cairo said. “They’re trying to clinch the playoff spot and right now we’re going to play hard.”
Padres right-hander Yu Darvish, denied in his bid to register a career-high 18th win, pitched six innings and gave up three runs on eight hits, including a solo homer by Eloy Jimenez in the fourth. Darvish was pushed back a day for extra rest as the NL wild-card round approaches.
The Sox scored a second run in the fourth when Sheets followed the Jimenez homer with a double and Yoan Moncada singled Sheets home. The Sox made it 3-1 in the sixth when Moncada doubled to deep right center and Vaughn singled to score Moncada, who had three hits.
The Padres led 1-0 in the second on Josh Bell’s RBI single scoring Brandon Drury, who was hit on the bill of his helmet by a Martin pitch in the fourth. Martin was shaken by it, settled down to retire the next two batters.
