The Chicago White Sox were mounting a rally in the eighth inning Friday against the Oakland Athletics.
Two runs were in thanks to a double by Andrew Benintendi.
There were two on and two outs with the No. 2 batter in the Sox lineup, Tim Anderson, at the plate. But Reliever Trevor May entered and struck out Anderson, who slammed his bat after fanning for the fourth time.
It was a night of missed opportunities for the Sox in a 7-4 loss to the A’s in front of 14,181 at Oakland Coliseum.
The Sox went 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position, dropping the opener of a three-game series against the team with the worst record in baseball.
“The game was probably decided in the first couple of innings,” Sox manager Pedro Grifol said.
The Sox scored just once in those innings despite loading the bases in both the first and second.
Benintendi began the game with a double. Eloy Jiménez brought him home with a two-out single. Andrew Vaughn singled — his first of three hits — and Yasmani Grandal walked, loading the bases with two outs.
Gavin Sheets put a good swing on it, but flew out to right to end the inning.
When A’s starter Luis Medina walked Luis Robert Jr. with two outs in the second — his third walk issued in the inning — the Sox found themselves with the bases loaded. But Jiménez grounded to shortstop Aledmys Díaz, who got the force at second to end the threat.
“Bases loaded a couple of times, we hit one in the gap there and it’s a whole different ballgame,” Grifol said. “Just didn’t do it.”
A leadoff walk ignited a four-run rally for the A’s in the bottom of the second. Tony Kemp drove in a run later in the inning with a triple and then scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 4-1.
Sox starter Tanner Banks allowed four runs on five hits with three strikeouts and one walk in four innings.
“Got a little bit out of my attack plan and in my approach and obviously it got to me,” Banks said. “Made some good pitches but they had some good swings on them.
“My goal is to keep the team in the game as well as I can and give them as much length as I can. Wasn’t able to keep them in there early long enough.”
Medina walked five, but escaped with allowing just the one run on four hits with four strikeouts in five innings.
“That guy had good stuff tonight, upper 90s, a little wild, but effectively wild,” Benintendi said.
Sox hitting coach José Castro later argued Medina’s fourth-inning called strikeout of Anderson and was ejected before the top of the fifth.
The Sox trailed 5-1 going to the eighth. They loaded the bases again with two outs. This time, Benintendi came through with the two-run double against reliever Sam Moll to make it 5-3.
“That’s not a very comfortable at-bat, that guy’s got some good stuff,” Benintendi said. “I was just trying to get something up and something I could put a good swing on. Fortunately able to barrel it.”
That brought up Anderson with runners on second and third. May got him swinging in a four-pitch at-bat.
Asked if he considered moving Anderson (4-for-53 in his last 14 games) in the lineup, Grifol said, “Haven’t thought about that yet.”
The Sox — who gave up two in the eighth and got one back on Robert’s 24th homer of the season in the ninth — will spend some time thinking how another one got away.
“You can break it down any way you’d like, there were times we should have scored, could have pushed more across and times where maybe we took advantage,” Benintendi said.
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