A's 7, White Sox 4 (10 innings): Three pitchers lose three-run lead

That's Ozzie Guillen, and he's out of ideas after this one.

With another three-run lead, Guillen went away from Matt Thornton ... until Chris Sale gave up three hits to the two batters he saw, and Jesse Crain walked his first batter to load the bases after the A's narrowed it to 4-2.

Crain struck out Kurt Suzuki (and he still might not have thrown a single strike), but when Bob Geren came at Crain with Ryan Sweeney, Guillen went back to Thornton. It almost worked. Thornton struck out Sweeney, but the next batter, Cliff Pennington, delivered a two-run bloop single to center to send it to extras.

That would be the pattern for Thornton, who also started the 10th by retiring the first batter he faced. Then he walked two batters and delivered the game-winning single. Oakland tacked on two more runs, and left Guillen beside himself after the game.

The lesson, as always: John Danks doesn't know how to win.

Sure, it seems like Danks did nothing wrong. He threw eight innings of one-run ball (a solo shot by Hideki Matsui), and pitched out of the other jam he faced. He walked a batter in each of his final three innings, but he was far more efficient than he had been in his first two starts, and ended up needing just 108 pitches on the day.

He allowed the Sox time to figure out the always-tough Brett Anderson, and they eventually got to him for four runs - with a lot of help from the A's, Anderson included.

Anderson started it. Juan Pierre reached with one out in the fifth when Anderson looked completely frazzled trying to handle a routine tapper back to the mound. He whiffed on it, and Pierre reached. Pierre was picked off by Anderson the first two times he reached, but this time he stayed at home, and it paid dividends. Gordon Beckham drove him home from first on a double to the left-center gap.

Anderson created his own mess the following inning by hitting Carlos Quentin in the shin with a two-strike pitch. Like Beckham, Alex Rios smashed a double; unlike Pierre, Quentin only got to third. After Alexei Ramirez broke his bat on a groundout to third, Ramon Castro chopped another one at Kevin Kouzmanoff.

And so began the burst of a sequence of excellent fundamental baseball. Quentin got a great read of the speed and direction of the chopper and broke immediately towards home. Kouzmanoff backed up behind the bag, and had no angle to try to get Quentin out at home. His throw forced Suzuki to jump, and Quentin slid under the tag attempt for a 2-1 lead.

Rios moved to third on the play, and he came home on a beautiful safety squeeze executed by Brent Morel, who didn't square around until late, and still pushed the bunt perfectly up the first-base line. That gave the Sox a 3-1 lead, and Rios scored again on a Morel hit in the eighth. This time, it was a grounder Kouzmanoff couldn't handle cleanly, and he ended up throwing the ball away.

Notes:

*Pierre committed another error, failing to come up with a ball cleanly and allowing Pennington to stretch a single into a double. Danks pitched around it.

*Morel had a fine defensive day at third, making  a couple tough plays along the line.

Record: 7-5 | Box score | Play-by-play