September 22 – Xander Bogaerts, David Peralta and Elias Díaz all hit home runs Saturday night as the San Diego Padres beat the visiting Chicago White Sox, 6–2, putting them on the verge of modern major league history.
Left-hander Martin Perez (5-5) improved to 3-0 in nine starts with San Diego, allowing one run on two hits and three walks in 5 1/3 innings. He struck out six. Four relievers handled the game, with Tanner Scott recording his 22nd save of the year over the final five games.
Chicago starter Chris Friesen (2-15) allowed four runs on eight hits in five innings, walking two and striking out three. The result puts the White Sox at 36-119 in 2024, one step away from matching the 1962 New York Mets for the most losses in a season in modern major league history.
In the eighth inning, Brian Ramos hit a single against Jason Adam and Chicago had a chance to erase a 4–1 deficit. But after Scott entered the game, he allowed Dominic Fletcher to score with an inning-ending double, spoiling the mood of the game.
Díaz hit his first home run as a member of the Padres and his sixth of the year in the bottom of the eighth inning, a two-run hit to left-center to add some insurance.
The Padres (89-66) are two games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks for a wild-card spot in the National League. They are three games behind the San Diego Dodgers for first place in the NL West after Los Angeles lost to the Colorado Rockies on Saturday.
Bogaerts dived on a cutter in the second quarter and passed the ball some 426 feet to left-center for a two-point play that gave San Diego a 2-0 lead. It was Bogaerts’ 11th home run of the year.
Peralta hit his eighth home run of the season from an estimated 393 feet in the fourth to make it 3–0. The Padres’ fourth run came an inning later when Jackson Merrill hit an RBI single off Jurickson Profar’s leadoff double.
Lenin Sosa’s single off Luis Robert Jr. in the sixth inning put the White Sox on top.
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