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White Sox Game Recaps

Padres 6, White Sox 2: Move over, Tigers, here comes No. 119

White Sox lose again

(Graphic courtesy of billyok)

For the second straight night, the White Sox had an opening for a comeback, but they didn't have a countermove.

After Bryan Ramos drew a bases-loaded walk with one out to narrow San Diego's lead to 4-2 in the eighth inning, Mike Shildt swapped out Jason Adam for left-handed reliever Tanner Scott to face Dominic Fletcher. Fletcher, a .164 hitter against lefties in 75 MLB plate appearances, grounded into a 4-6-3 double play to end the threat.

Enyel De Los Santos then gave up a two-run shot to erase Adam's mark, and the White Sox tied the 2003 Tigers with their 119th loss.

The White Sox ran into a similar situation Friday, when Fletcher stood in against a lefty with one out and the go-ahead run on third. He rolled over to second, and Ramos was cut down at home on a contact play. The Sox optioned Fletcher's platoonmate to Charlotte in order to reinstate a Yoán Moncada they refuse to play, and while every option is undesirable, if the White Sox were trying to set the modern MLB loss record with extreme prejudice, this is what it would look like.

The short-circuited uprising meant that Chris Flexen was fated to another loss, dropping his record to 2-15. He threw a very Chris Flexen start -- five innings that were unimpressively acceptable. He gave up four runs on a two-run shot by Xander Bogaerts in the second, a solo shot to David Peralta in the fourth, and a Jurickson Profar leadoff double that came around to score in the fifth. It's the kind of game that sums up why he's been able to lose 15 games and throw 150 innings: He's never the biggest problem.

His counterpart, Martín Pérez, shut down the White Sox through five, but he hit a wall in the sixth. He plunked Luis Robert Jr. with one out, walked Andrew Vaughn, and then Lenyn Sosa spoiled a shutout bid for the second consecutive night, this time with a single to left field that made it a 4-1 game.

The White Sox needed Padres control issues to open another door in the eighth. Adam took over and opened the inning with a walk to Miguel Vargas. Robert singled, and both runners advanced 90 feet on a Vaughn groundout. Sosa was denied his second walk of September when a full-count changeup hit him in the thigh to load the bases, and then Ramos staved off elimination on a 1-2 count by taking three straight out of the zone to bring home a run.

That's when Fletcher came to the plate, and Shildt decided to turn the difficulty level down to "rookie" by bringing in a lefty.

Bullet points:

*In another similarity to Friday, Fletcher came ohsoclose to making a spectacular catch. Here, he couldn't quite secure the ball with his leaping attempt into the right-field wall, and Fernando Tatis Jr. had a double.

*The Padres had seven extra-base hits. The White Sox had zero.

*Robert made a nice running catch on the center field warning track to take away extra bases.

*Sosa continued his strong September with the only multi-hit game, reaching base three times. He did cost the Sox a potential double play with a bad throw to second, but he at least retired the lead runner.

*Zach DeLoach and Jacob Amaya each wore golden sombreros in the seventh and eighth spots, and the former ran into the latter on a popout the end the eighth. Amaya had camped under it yelling and windmilling his arms, and yet DeLoach almost cost the Sox an unearned run.

*Michael Soroka made his return to the mound and pitched two scoreless innings.

Record: 36-119 | Box score | Statcast

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