Four hits, two runs, no errors. That's the collective outcome of the Oakland A's in their first defeat of the series against the White Sox on the road as they dropped Saturday's matchup 6-2 with one game left between both ballclubs.
JP Sears started on the mound for the A's, and he surely didn't finish the game. Judge by yourself.
The frustration is mounting for JP Sears in Chicago pic.twitter.com/5AnTw8Tyz3
— A's on NBCS (@NBCSAthletics) August 27, 2023
Can't blame the loser (on the official game report and MLB books, don't get me wrong) who went for six full innings of pitching tossing 98 pitches and allowing six runs, all of them earned, on nine hits.
Sears wasn't that bad, mind you. He removed 18 batters and stroke out eight. He only walked a couple, but he got rocked three times with White Sox homers. That latter fact was just tooooo damaging and finished the A's on the spot.
There was no offensive fireworks on the side of the visitors, either. Four Athletics' batsmen put their bats to opposing pitches logging hits on Saturday: Ryan Noda, Brent Rooker, Shea Langeliers, and Jonah Bride.
The White Sox led from the get-go scoring their first run in the first inning, and steadily adding more to the scoreboard nearly every frame with one scored in the second, three in the third, and then their final run coming in the fifth.
The A's had to wait all the way until the eight inning to finally crack the White Sox code. Carlos Perez hit a ball hard to left field and Yoan Moncada couldn't field it (error) helping Esteury Ruiz to score easily.
Bride followed up with a line drive to mid-center that fell for a single and brought Brent Rooker home. And that's pretty much all of your A's offense on a dreadful Saturday to forget.
Making things worse after winning the first couple of games of the Chi-Series, it's worth remembering this is a four-game battle so the A's have still to secure a series win by beating the Sox for a third time on Sunday morning, or else they'll be splitting. Sheesh...