The Oakland A's were able to hit the ball out of the park multiple times. The Chicago White Sox were not able to do it once.
That's about the story of tonight's game. Iván Nova gave up three homers over the first two innings, and that was all the offense Mike Fiers needed. Fiers, whose high fastball/curve combo has stymied the Sox the handful of times they've faced each other, once again missed enough barrels for success. And even when the ball did find the barrel, it tended to find an Oakland glove.
The Sox were shut out for 8⅔ innings, and Fiers contributed 7⅔ of those himself. He posted a very 1980s line as he only struck out four while scattering eight singles and a walk. James McCann drew that walk on nine pitches to end Fiers' night.
By and large, the White Sox had two outs on them by the time they assembled a threat, and they couldn't come through with a clutch hit until the ninth. Eloy Jiménez walked and AJ Reed delivered his first single as a White Sox to start the inning, but Joakim Soria got Yolmer Sanchez to pop out before striking out Charlie Tilson.
Leury García then slashed a single in front of Ramon Laureano on a full count to score Jiménez and make it a 5-1 game. That forced Bob Melvin to go to the bullpen for closer Liam Hendriks, who used a terrible 0-1 strike call to punch out Yoan Moncada to end the game. García hit kept the Sox from going 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position. They instead went 1-for-9. It was a game characterized more by McCann lining out to Semien in consecutive at-bats, and Reed flying out to center in his first three trips.
The A's were only 2-for-11 in the clutch, but the long balls helped. One of those hits came in the first inning as Oakland strung together three straight singles for a quick 1-0 lead. That ballooned to 3-0 in the second as Laureano and Jurickson Profar each hit impressive homers to left and right field, and Mark Canha added one for good measure in the sixth to ruin Nova's bid for a quality start.
Juan Minaya then yielded the fifth run, with Marcus Semien tripling home Josh Phegley for a 5-0 lead.
Bullet points:
*The White Sox had an uneven day on defense, although all the damage came on the harder-hit balls. García bobbled a grounder for one error, but he had a bullet one-hopper go through him in the first and couldn't round off a grounder effectively later in the game.
*Jiménez made a sliding catch in foul territory to take a step forward, but he then took a literal step back on a fly that dropped in front of him.
*McCann helped Nova limit damage later by cutting down Mark Canha at second on a pitch in the dirt after Canha led off the fourth with a single.
Record: 42-45 | Box score | Highlights
