A’s, Manaea lock down White Sox

OAKLAND — The nightmare of August is over for Sean Manaea, and the Athletics are hoping that means good things for the rest of the season.

Manaea had his second straight strong September start Thursday in a 3-1 win over the Chicago White Sox, improving his record to 9-9 and getting help from relievers Sergio Romo and Andrew Chafin in the eighth and ninth innings. Chafin earned his third save, weathering a two-out double to Romy Gonzalez before getting the last out on a foul pop up.

The win improved the A’s record to 76-64, beating the A.L. Central leaders for the second straight day before a crowd of 5,078 at the Coliseum after coming in having lost 11 of 16 games.

Manaea encountered very little trouble throughout, giving up one run on five hits with a walk and nine strikeouts in seven innings. He worked from ahead all day, with 69 of his 101 pitches going for strikes. Reynaldo Lopez (3-2) was the losing pitcher for the White Sox, who fell to 80-60.

In his previous start, Manaea gave up two runs in eight innings and left with an 8-2 lead against Toronto, only to have the bullpen melt down in an 11-10 loss. The end result was better this time, and piggy-backed a seven-inning effort the previous evening from Frankie Montas against the White Sox.

Two unearned runs which were set up by an error by Lopez put the A’s up 3-1 in the fourth inning. The first came courtesy of Starling Marte, who singled, stole second (he was originally ruled out by the call was reversed on replay) and then came around to score when Lopez made an errant pickoff throw to second. The ball rolled slowly enough in the outfield that Marte came around to score and Matt Olson, who had walked, went to third.

Matt Chapman followed with a high fly to left field in foul territory.

Once Billy Hamilton made the catch, Olson came home on the sacrifice fly.

The White Sox got their first run against Manaea in the third inning on Jose Abreu’s two-out RBI single to right center. It brought home Cesar Hernandez, who had a one-out double.

The Athletics opened the scoring in the second inning on Tony Kemp’s run-scoring triple down the left-field line, scoring Jed Lowrie.

Lowrie opened with a double against Lopez, who then struck out Mark Canha. Kemp, who left Tuesday’s

game with a wrist injury but returned to the lineup Thursday, then hit a ball to the opposite field down the left field line. Hamilton, hustling all the way, couldn’t come up with the ball cleanly, the ball rolled past him to the fence, and Lowrie came around to score while Kemp went to third with a triple.