Oakland outhomers Chicago in victory, 7-3

In the month of July, our Chicago White Sox have lost three of five Friday games, with the latest coming against the Oakland Athletics tonight, 7-3.

Coming all the way from the bay, Oakland reminisced on the sea breeze and took advantage of a lively ballpark in Chicago this evening.

To help catalyze Oakland’s offensive romp, José Abreu missed Yoán Moncada’s throw to open the second inning. Elvis Andrus followed the error with a single, and Stephen Piscotty tallied the first homer of the night for — a three-run shot.

Abreu notched an RBI single in the first inning to try and counteract Oakland’s first strike, trimming the deficit to 3-1.

For Lance Lynn, his pitching settled down after the early home run, and his cutter had college Carson Fulmer-esque movement. Over the course of the game, Lynn struck out eight batters, but the home run ball would haunt him twice more.

After one out in the sixth, Seth Brown hit a line-drive rocket over the right-field wall, and an out after that, Andrus flipped one over the left-field wall for a solo shot of his own.

Putting haters to shame, Josh Harrison was not happy with the 5-1 deficit, so he added to the home run parade with a two-run long ball in the seventh inning.

Just when we thought the Sox were going to produce an epic comeback down two runs (OK, maybe I only had the optimism for this), Oakland piled on more.

Davis Martin entered the game in relief of Lance Lynn and picked up a scoreless 1 ¹⁄₃ innings, until ...

Brown, who already recorded the second home run of the evening for the A’s, selfishly took the fourth home run as well, in the eighth, making it 6-3, Oakland.

Unfortunately, the Athletics played into Tony La Russa’s baseball style. With runners on the corners in the ninth, Nick Allen sacrifice bunted for an RBI. Sigh. Oakland beat TLR with the long game AND the small ball. Can I blame them? No, not at all.

The Athletics coasted to their 7-3 victory, and improve to 39-63. Once more this season, the Good Guys fall below .500, at 49-50.

How’s the trade deadline looking?

Johnny Cueto (4-4, 2.89 ERA) will share a mound with All-Star Paul Blackburn (6-6, 4.35 ERA) for tomorrow’s 6:15 p.m. CT (that’s a new time) game on NBC Sports Chicago. The expectation is to tie the series at one.

Mood