Padres’ bats stay cold in loss to White Sox, magic number remains at three

The Padres have celebrated earning a playoff appearance just once in front of fans at Petco Park.

The earliest it will happen again is Sunday, as they continued Friday to delay what still seems inevitable but feels a little less so with each passing defeat.

The latest of those was a 3-1 loss to the White Sox, which kept the Padres’ magic number at three.

A third straight setback, combined with a victory by the Brewers over the Marlins, left the Padres needing a combination of their wins and Brewers’ losses that add up to three over the next five games.

“It’s on us now,” Brandon Drury said. “We win the games we’re supposed to win, we’re gonna get in.”

The missed opportunity against a team out of playoff contention came on a night the Padres pitched their ace and were facing a rookie making his eighth start.

The Padres scored just once in 5 2/3 innings against right-hander Davis Martin, who struck out a career-high eight batters.

They did not score in the fourth inning despite having runners at first and second with one out.

An aggressive send by third base coach Matt Williams, with Manny Machado due up, cost the Padres a chance to at least tie the game in the fifth inning.

They failed to score in the seventh after Ha-Seong Kim led off with a single and stole second base before an out was made.

“I don’t think we’re pressing,” Jurickson Profar said. “But we need to get better. We need to hit. I don’t know. We have to do it.”

The White Sox scored twice in the fourth inning and added a run in the sixth against Yu Darvish, who lost for the first time in seven starts.

Asked if the Padres were pressing with the playoffs so close to their grap, Juan Soto bristled.

“What press?” he said. “We are in. Right now, we’re in. There’s no pressure at all. We’ve just got to stay there. It’s just maintain the spot that we have.”

The Padres not making the playoffs would require them losing three of five while the Brewers finish 5-0, losing four of five while the Brewers go 4-1 or going winless while the Brewers finish 3-2.

So while it isn’t guaranteed, especially with the Padres having gone 4-for-32 with runners in scoring position while winning just once in the past four games, it still seems likely that at some point champagne will be uncorked in the Padres’ clubhouse and there will be a celebration on the field at Petco Park in front of fans for the first time since 2005.

The Padres’ last playoff appearance came in the COVID-shortened 2020 season when games were played in virtually empty ballparks. Their previous playoff appearance was in 2006, and they clinched while in Arizona.

The only time a Padres team has celebrated a playoff berth in front of fans in their downtown ballpark was on Sept. 28, 2005, when they clinched the National League West.

There have been just six playoff appearances in the franchise’s 53 seasons. Four have been clinched in San Diego. Two of those came in Mission Valley — in 1984 at what was then called Jack Murphy Stadium and 1998 at Qualcomm Stadium. The other was in ’20.

“It’s right there for us,” manager Bob Melvin said before the game. “… It’d be nice to get back on a little bit of a winning streak here and hopefully take care of business.”

The Padres took a 1-0 lead in the second inning Friday when Drury grounded a ball through the middle and hustled to second for a one-out double. Josh Bell, who entered the game hitless in his previous 15 at-bats, followed with a single up the middle that scored Drury.

Those were the Padres’ only baserunners in the first three innings.

A towering home run by Eloy Jimenez off the second-level balcony of the Western Metal Building tied the game 1-1 on the first pitch of the fourth inning.

Darvish would not get the first out of the inning until Chicago had two more hits and held a 2-1 lead.

Gavin Sheets followed Jimenez to the plate and lined a 1-1 slider to left-center field for a double. He scored on Yoan Moncada’s line drive single to right field on a 1-0 fastball.

Jake Cronenworth lined a one-out double to left field in the fourth inning, and Drury reached after being hit in bill of his helmet by a 96 mph fastball.

It was the second time this month Drury went down after taking a pitch to a part of his helmet. A 88 mph Dustin May curveball caught him in his face guard on Sept. 2 at Dodger Stadium. Drury remained in that game and came around to score before being removed. He missed the next 10 games with a concussion.

Drury and Cronenworth were stranded after Bell and Kim struck out, and Drury took his spot in the field at first base in the top of the fifth inning and finished the game.

“I was fine,” said Drury, who singled again in the sixth inning. “I felt fine, but it scared me at first. Right when it first hits you, it just kind of shocks you a little bit. When I got up, though, I felt much better than last time.”

The White Sox added on in the sixth on Moncada’s double and a single by Andrew Vaughn, both with one out.

Profar’s one-out single in the fifth was followed by Soto lining a double to right field. Williams waved Profar around even though second baseman Josh Harrison was about to receive the relay throw in shallow right field and Machado was on deck.

“Well, we’re not scoring runs right now,” Melvin said when asked about Williams’ decision. “So we’re trying to push a run across at that point in time. He’s as a good a third base coach as there is, I think. In those situations you have to feel out how we’re doing right there. A lot of momentum comes back in our dugout if we score a run right there, so he was aggressive.”

Machado went 0-for-4 and is 3-for-17 in the past four games.

Kim walked and stole second to start the seventh, and Profar walked with two outs to bring Soto to the plate. Facing left-hander Aaron Bummer, Soto sent a 96 mph sinker on the outer edge of the zone sailing toward the corner in left field. The ball traveled more than far enough to have been a home run and appeared even on its descent it might be before hitting off the facing below the patio next to the Western Metal Building, foul by about 15 feet.

“When I hit it, I know I got it,” Soto said. “I know it’s gonna be a homer, or it’s gonna be a foul ball. I just saw the ball flying. When it started coming down, it was still fair. So I was thinking it was gone. Just in the last moment it just went foul.”

The offensive struggles meant Darvish would have had to be at his best. He wasn’t.

“Body wise, I don’t think it was moving as efficiently,” he said. “And the sharpness of the pitches I think it wasn’t there tonight.”

Rather than having him face the Dodgers on regular rest Thursday, the Padres held Darvish back a day with the idea he starts their first playoff game on Oct. 7. The primary reasoning was that he would be better served to have six days off before that start instead of the seven he would have had if he had pitched Thursday.

He did complete at least six innings for the 23^rd consecutive start. He was replaced by Luis Garcia at the beginning of the seventh inning, meaning Darvish would not win a seventh consecutive start or set a career-high with 17 wins for the season.

“Gives us six innings,” Melvin said. “... Puts us in a position to win.”