Luis Robert had three hits and two RBIs and Liam Hendriks recorded a five-out save against his former club as the host Chicago White Sox beat the Oakland Athletics 3-2 on Wednesday.
Hendriks struck out the final three Oakland batters en route to his American League-leading 28th save for the White Sox, who will try to secure a sweep of the four-game series on Thursday afternoon.
The A's have lost four straight and five of six on the heels of a seven-game winning streak.
Chicago opened the scoring on an RBI double by Eloy Jimenez in the first inning. After Seth Brown swatted a game-tying home run for Oakland in the fourth, Robert delivered RBI singles in the fourth and sixth. Robert has four multi-hit games in his past seven contests.
Oakland drew to within 3-2 on Starling Marte's RBI sacrifice fly in the seventh.
The A's had runners on first and second with one out in the eighth before Hendriks entered and worked out of the jam. Oakland left 11 men on base while going 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
White Sox starter Lance Lynn pitched four strong innings before being ejected following a contentious foreign-substance check.
Standing in the dugout after retiring the side in the fourth, Lynn appeared to throw his belt onto the field and was tossed by third base umpire Nic Lentz. Lynn took a no-decision after yielding one run and three hits. He walked three walks and struck out four.
A's right-hander Paul Blackburn got the start in his season debut following a lineup change before first pitch, as manager Bob Melvin pushed scheduled starter Cole Irvin and the rest of the rotation back one day. Blackburn (0-1) gave up three runs on five hits in 5 1/3 innings with three walks and three strikeouts.
Garrett Crochet (3-5) was the winner, allowing one hit and one walk in 1 2/3 scoreless innings.
--Field Level Media
Oakland | Chi. White Sox | |
Paul Blackburn | Player | Lance Lynn |
Loss | W/L | No Decision |
5.1 | IP | 4.0 |
3 | Strikeouts | 4 |
5 | Hits | 4 |
5.06 | ERA | 2.25 |
Oakland | Chi. White Sox | |
Starling Marte | Player | Luis Robert |
2 | Hits | 3 |
1 | RBI | 2 |
0 | HR | 0 |
2 | TB | 3 |
.500 | Avg | .750 |
Team | Hits | HR | TB | Avg | LOB | K | RBI | BB | SB | Errors |
Oakland | 8 | 1 | 14 | .235 | 30 | 9 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 |
Chi. White Sox | 9 | 0 | 10 | .281 | 17 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 |