Luis Robert Jr. robbed Brent Rooker of a homer, which makes it all the more remarkable that the White Sox still managed to allow five dingers, including one by Rooker himself.
Jesse Scholtens gave up three homers, including a pair of sixth-inning solo shots that tied the game at 5. Jimmy Lambert gave up a two-run homer in the seventh after retiring the first two batters of the inning, and Lane Ramsey made it a mittful by yielding Tony Kemp's fourth of the year.
The long ball maximized their scoring opportunities, because only 11 A's reached safely on the evening, and eight of them came around to score.
The White Sox were a little less powerful, and a little more wasteful.
Andrew Benintendi won a lefty-lefty battle against Ken Waldichuk in the first inning to give the Sox a 1-0 lead, and after Langeliers' first homer gave Oakland a 3-1 lead in the fourth, the Sox came up with three runs' worth of homers in the fifth. Elvis Andrus went yard, Benintendi parachuted an RBI single to center, and then Robert crushed a majestic moonshot into the left-field bleachers for the 5-3 lead.
Benintendi's hit was the lone success with runners in scoring position, as the Sox went 1-for-7. They also grounded into a pair of double plays to stall a couple other threats.
Bullet points:
*Korey Lee made his White Sox debut, and he fulfilled my scouting report. He went 1-for-4 with a strikeout, but that "1" was a chopper to the mound that Waldichuk knocked down, only to fire wildly to first. It was scored a single and an error when Lee advanced to second. He skipped a throw into center field, but later cut down an attempted thief on a busted hit-and-run attempt.
*Both teams drew one walk and one HBP in the battle between wild pitching staffs and undisciplined lineups. The walk the White Sox drew was intentional.
