You can divide this game into two halves -- before Dylan Covey got injured, and after Dylan Covey got injured.
By the final score, you might be able to discern that A.D. -- After Dylan -- was the game's more prominent era.
The White Sox resumed their losing ways despite opening up a 5-0 lead after the first, although the injury to their starting pitcher following heavy bullpen usage in the doubleheader dictated the terms of this one.
Sure, Oakland starter Daniel Mengden also left with an injury, but he didn't look right from the start. He gave up five runs in the first, including a three-run opposite-field shot to Tim Anderson. Covey was a little shaky himself, but a two-run homer by Stephen Piscotty was all the damage he'd suffered through four.
Covey succumbed to injury in the fifth, though. He walked the leadoff man, and after falling behind 2-1, Rick Renteria and Herm Schneider came out, and Covey departed with what the White Sox initially called hip soreness, and was described as a groin issue in subsequent reports. In came Chris Volstad, who finished off the walk to Lucroy and set a game-tying sequence in motion. A single loaded the bases, and Dustin Fowler lifted a sac fly to make it 5-3. Marcus Semien's fly to right didn't get the job done, but Jed Lowrie's did. His two-out, two-run double tied the game at 5.
Matt Olson then started the sixth with a solo shot to give Oakland its first lead. The Sox answered that one in the bottom of the inning, and Yoan Moncada's bases-loaded fielder's choice tied the game at 6. But when Avisail Garcia lost an otherwise routine two-out fly ball in the eighth for a double and it came around to score on Nick Martini's single ... well, the Sox didn't have an answer for that one.
It wasn't for a lack of chances. Yolmer Sanchez led off the eighth with a double down the left-field line, but couldn't advance any further. In the ninth, they had two on and one out after a pair of errors. Blake Treinen dropped a feed from the first baseman Olson on what should've been a 3-1, and Marcus Semien played a Jose Abreu double-play ball off his chest, but Semien handled Matt Davidson's grounder to ace his second attempt at two, ending the game.
This game frontloaded its fun. The White Sox built a huge lead with help from Mendgen. He plunked Moncada to start the game (it was initially ruled a foul ball, but the replay showed it hit Moncada's wrist), then gave up a pair of sharp singles to Garcia and Abreu for a 1-0 lead. Matt Davidson walked to load the bases, and Kevan Smith's fielder's choice drove home a second run. Two batters later, Anderson lofted a fly that just cleared the right field wall for a homer on his birthday.
Bullet points:
*Anderson committed an error, but any effects were immediately erased by a bigger blunder by Fowler. Anderson dropped Moncada's feed on a force at second. In an attempt to clear a sliding Fowler and throw to first for a potential double play, Anderson forgot to catch the first out. However, Fowler assumed he was out and began trotting back to first, and Yolmer Sanchez, who had recovered the ball, slapped the tag for the out.
*Anderson has 12 errors, but Semien is up to 16 after three errors over the first three games, which gives him five over his last four.
*The White Sox were just 2-for-16 with runners in scoring position after going 5-for-8 on Friday.
Record: 25-51 | Box score
