A dismal opener to Friday’s White Sox doubleheader against the Athletics ended on a high note with Lucas Giolito striking out a career-best-matching, season-high eight batters over seven-plus innings in the night game’s 6-4 victory.
“Gio threw a heck of a game and we picked him up on defense,” said shortstop Tim Anderson, who added an insurance run for the Sox in the eighth inning with a homer.
The day game, however, was a disaster.
James Shields’ four-run second inning — with the A’s getting help from the first of Yoan Moncada’s two fielding errors — was just the tip of the iceberg for Shields’ struggles and the Sox’s multitude of defensive problems during an 11-2 loss.
The debacle ran their losing streak to a season-worst eight games. The Sox committed three errors and A’s starter Sean Manaea struck out seven Sox.
“Little rough game,” White Sox manager Rick Renteria said. “We have to put it behind us as quickly as possible.
“Obviously, James got hit around a little bit. Again, we didn’t make some key plays there early and it kind of led to a couple of different things.”
Shields gave up eight runs on five hits in 42/3 innings, but only two of the runs were earned.
“Overall, we didn’t play very good baseball this first game,” he said. “I’m going to hold myself accountable for not doing my part and going deep in the game. I really could have made some better pitches to counteract some of the miscues. But I didn’t do my job.”
As demoralizing as the first game must have been for Shields, Giolito got much needed reassurance in his outing. He had a 4-7 record and 7.19 ERA entering Friday’s play but steadfastly maintained confidence in his approach throughout his rough patch.
“Absolutely nothing different,” Giolito said. “Same competitive mindset going out there, trying to get ahead of hitters and attack hitters in the strike zone. … Defense behind me was spectacular tonight, especially (Adam Engel) with the diving catch (in the second). Throwing the guy out at third (in the seventh), that was huge.”
Moncada’s errors in the opener to give him 11 on the season, after he mistimed the hop on one Matt Olson grounder and let a later Olson chopper bounce off his glove. But in Game 2, Moncada was able to cut off Matt Joyce’s hard grounder in the sixth.
Renteria was pleased he bounced back.
“He did a nice job of fronting the ball, a very similar ball that he had earlier, and was able to make that play,” he said. “They’re learning. It’s one step. We’re glad that he was able to do it.”
Avisail Garcia and Leury Garcia, activated from the disabled list for only the day game, showed signs of rust in the twinbill’s opener. Avisail struck out twice and had a bat fly out of his hand during one foul tip, and Leury let Khris Davis’ fifth-inning single get by him in left field for an error.
Twitter @_phil_thompson
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