Chicago White Sox: Series with the Oakland Athletics was terrible

The Chicago White Sox played a weekend series with the Oakland Athletics and it went exactly how you might have expected for them.

The Chicago White Sox have had a rough go of it lately whenever they play against the Oakland Athletics. They were hoping to use home-field advantage to help end the slump against them but it wasn’t great as they only took one out of three games against them in the series. This was a terrible series though but there were some positives to look at.

They were blown out in the first game on Friday and that made it look like this was going to be an ugly series but they came back the next day and got a nail-biting win. The series came down to the rubber match on Sunday where both teams got really solid pitching. Oakland prevailed because of a two-run home run hit by Matt Olsen. Other than that mistake pitch, Lucas Giolito had a fantastic game and just wasn’t afforded any run support.

Reynaldo Lopez and Giolito both had incredible starts during this series. It was an extra special start for Giolito as he had a career-high 13 strikeouts in the loss. They only lost 2-0 in the game and Giiolito suffered the loss because the team couldn’t pick up two runs. It was a really bad weekend for the offense as they only scored three runs in the three games and they all came in the same game. They have been getting some good pitching on most days but when the offense dries out they have no chance.

They are missing Yoan Moncada big time from their lineup and are desperate for the high level of offense he can bring as well as some stellar play at third base. Moncada also leads the White Sox in walks with 31 so it is a major piece clearly missing from their lineup as he can get on base in many different ways.

Tim Anderson had at least one hit in all three games extending his hitting streak to 10 games. It started on August 1st and it is really cool to see him starting to get back into the groove he was in before his injury sidelined him for a while. Anderson is such a big part of the lineup and they need him playing well pretty much every night in order to have a chance.

Now that this series is over, the White Sox are going to welcome in the top team in the American League in the Houston Astros. This is going to be an extremely tough series for the White Sox as the Astros are true World Series contenders and are one of if not the deepest team in the MLB. They need to not be intimidated by them and just play their game and see what happens. It should be fun to see where the Sox stack up against them.