Mike Tauchman neared the stands, timed a jump perfectly and made a catch while landing in the protective netting down the right-field line to end the top of the sixth inning.
It was one of several standout defensive plays the Chicago White Sox right fielder made in Saturday’s 7-3 loss to the San Diego Padres in front of 27,345 at Rate Field.
“He’s a guy that leaves it out there every single day,” catcher Kyle Teel said. “(Left fielder) Will Robertson has one of the best catches I’ve ever seen, the one (Sept. 7 in Detroit) where he robbed the home run. But the one where (Tauchman) went into the seats, it was just unbelievable.
“It’s awesome to be on the field with him every single day.”
Tauchman made a sliding catch on a Luis Arraez liner in the third inning, got up and fired to first to double off Freddy Fermin.
The next inning, he dove to catch Jackson Merrill’s sinking liner. Tauchman went into the stands to track down Fermin’s foul fly in the sixth.
“It was outstanding,” manager Will Venable said of Tauchman’s defense. “He’s a guy that’s really been grinding here, physically, as a lot of these guys have. The work that he’s done to put himself physically in a spot to be effective and make those plays is great. Those were huge plays that were impactful tonight, for sure.”
The rookie Teel said he has learned a lot being teammates with Tauchman.
“He’s a guy, when I’m around him, I just want to be a sponge, soak in as much info as I can,” Teel said. “He’s a veteran guy that I can talk to every day. A lot of it is just talking with him, but you watch him play and you can learn a lot by just watching him.”
The sixth-inning leaping grab was a highlight in an otherwise rough inning in which the Padres scored four runs to pull ahead and away.
The Sox held a 2-1 lead up to that point thanks to run-scoring doubles from Miguel Vargas and Teel in the first and third innings, respectively.
“It’s rare you see a guy (like Padres starter Yu Darvish) with that many pitches,” Teel said. “You’ve kind of got to just bucket them and understand that a lot of the pitches look similar, so you’ve got to shrink it down to two or three. It’s not easy to do, especially with a guy like that, able to paint the corners. He’s a great pitcher.”
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The Padres took control in the sixth. Fernando Tatis Jr. singled, advanced to second on a wild pitch, stole third and scored on a one-out Manny Machado single to tie the score. That was the final batter for starter Yoendrys Gómez.
Reliever Fraser Ellard walked two of the next three batters, loading the bases for Ryan O’Hearn. He split the gap in left-center with a double, bringing in three runs to give the Padres a 5-2 lead.
“Sixth inning was tough,” Venable said. “Gómez did a great job tonight, very effective up front. Just with the walks with Ellard there, made it tough on us and some traffic and (we) weren’t able to work through it.”
Gómez suffered the loss, allowing three runs on six hits with four strikeouts and no walks in 5 1/3 innings.
“We were attacking the hitters,” Gómez said through an interpreter of his 74-pitch outing. “They are a good team, and they took advantage of a couple things but I think it was a good outing.”
The Padres added one run each in the eighth and ninth. The run in the eighth came via an RBI single by former Sox Gavin Sheets against reliever Cam Booser.
Lenyn Sosa hit his team-leading 21st home run in the ninth for the Sox, who have lost seven of eight.
The Sox (58-97) close out their home schedule Sunday afternoon. They need to win five of their last seven games to avoid reaching 100 losses for the third consecutive season.
