Reason to celebrate: White Sox don't play Oakland again this season

Mike Fiers

The White Sox played six games against the Oakland Athletics this season, and they were outscored 32-8. Yes, that's right: The Sox scored only eight runs in six games against Oakland pitching. In that context, it's a miracle they won one -- and that came Saturday night.

Here's a look back at the weekend series at Guaranteed Rate Field, during which the A's won two out of three games.

Friday, Aug. 9
A's 7, White Sox 0: Friday was one of those days when I looked at the pitching matchup and said, "The Sox have no chance today." They've never hit Mike Fiers well, and I never have high expectations for any Ross Detwiler start.

In fairness to Detwiler (1-3), there's was nothing wrong with his outing -- even though he took the loss. He went 5.2 innings and allowed two earned runs (both on solo home runs) on four hits. Matt Chapman homered in the first inning. Stephen Piscotty homered in the second.

That was plenty for Fiers (11-3), who struck out eight, walked nobody and allowed only three hits over seven shutout innings. The Sox finished the game with four hits, all singles.

The game got out of hand in the eighth inning, when the A's scored five runs off the combination of Jace Fry and Josh Osich. Fry failed to retire a hitter and was charged with four runs after he allowed two walks and two hits, including a home run by Chad Pinder.

Good job, good effort.

Saturday, Aug. 10
White Sox 3, A's 2: It was Eloy Jimenez bobblehead night, and the rookie left fielder marked the occasion by hitting his 19th home run of the season. The Sox scored their other two runs with speed. Leury Garcia stole third base and scored a run when the throw by Oakland catcher Chris Herrmann squirted away into shallow left field. Tim Anderson, while running on a 3-2 pitch, scored from first base on a single by Welington Castillo.

That backed a nice effort from Reynaldo Lopez (7-9), who navigated around six hits allowed and three walks to toss 6.1 shutout innings. Lopez did not have swing-and-miss stuff -- he struck out only three, but he benefited from three double plays.

The Sox bullpen was shaky, as Oakland stranded eight runners over the last three innings. The A's loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh, when Jon Jay made a nice running catch in right field to save a potential bases-clearing double off Pinder's bat.

Oakland placed runners on first and second with two out in the eighth, and Anderson made a nice play to his left to throw out Piscotty for the third out.

The Sox led, 3-0, going into the ninth, but the A's scored two unearned runs against Alex Colome, who struck out Khris Davis with two outs and the bases loaded to earn his 23rd save of the season.

Sunday, Aug. 11
A's 2, White Sox 0: The Sox honored newly inducted Hall of Famer Harold Baines with a ceremony before the game (more on that later), and frankly, the team might as well have allowed the 60-year-old Baines to take an at-bat -- he couldn't have done any worse than the current Sox hitters did against Chris Bassitt (8-5) and three Oakland relievers.

The South Siders managed only five hits (four of them singles) and didn't have a man reach third base after the second inning.

Too bad because Lucas Giolito (12-6) struck out a career high 13 and walked only one in six innings pitched. Unfortunately, he had one bad inning where he allowed a two-run homer to Oakland's Matt Olson, and given the way Sox hitters handle Oakland pitching, that was enough to get him beat on this day.

In Giolito's previous outing, he wasn't sharp at all in allowing three runs over six innings to the lowly Detroit Tigers. But, he won that start. On Sunday, I thought he was impressive, but he lost. That's baseball for you; it's a funny game.

And we can only speculate why Oakland has seemingly owned the Sox for decades.