by Jerry Feitelberg

AP photo: The Oakland A’s Billy Burns trots across home plate in the first inning to put the A’s on the board past Chicago White Sox  catcher Dioner Navarro

OAKLAND–The Oakland A’s and Chicago White Sox played their third consecutive one-run game. This time, however, the A’s won 2-1 behind a strong effort by Sonny Gray. Gray, who was not able to pitch Monday or Tuesday, went seven innings, allowed just three hits and received credit for his first win of the year. The A’s bullpen did their job again; John Axford pitched a scoreless eighth inning, and Ryan Madson closed out the game to earn his first save as a member of the A’s. Jed Lowrie drove in a run in the first and Mark Canha homered in the second to give the A’s all the runs they would need.The A’s jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Singles by Billy Burns and Khris Davis put men on at first and third with no out. The A’s leading RBI man, Jed Lowrie, hit a sacrifice fly to right to drive in Burns. Lowrie has knocked in five of the eight runs the A’s have scored so far this season. Carlos Rodon took the loss for the White Sox.

The A’s jumped out to an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first. Singles by Billy Burns and Khris Davis put men on at first and third with no out. The A’s leading RBI man, Jed Lowrie, hit a sacrifice fly to right to drive in Burns. Lowrie has knocked in five of the eight runs the A’s have scored so far this season.

The A’s scored again in the second inning. Big Mark Canha, playing right field in place of Josh Reddick, hit his first home run, and the A’s first home run, of te season. With one out, Canha hit a big fly to deep right field that hit the wall just over the scoreboard. A’s lead 2-0.

The White Sox scored their first run of the game in the top of the third. Center fielder Austin Jackson led off with a double. He advanced to third on a ground out and then scored on a sacrifice fly to short left field.

There was no more scoring after the third inning. Carlos Rodon pitched well for Chicago, but Sonny Gray pitched better for Oakland as the A’s won their first game of the year 2-1.

Game notes- The line score for Oakland was two runs on seven hits and no errors. The White Sox line was one run, six hits, and no errors.

After the game, A’s manager Bob Melvin was pleased with his team’s efforts Wednesday night. He took Gray out after seven innings of work. He remarked that “after Sonny had got the first out, he was dragging, and that was going to be the last inning” of work. When talking about the bullpen, Melvin said that his guys ” aren’t afraid to pitch with guys on base. He also said that John Axford was ” really good about being quicker to the plate and was very effective.” Sean Doolittle was not available to pitch, and Melvin elected to bring in Ryan Madsen to close out the game. Melvin, when asked about the stellar defensive effort and particularly the play of Marcus Semien had this to say. Semien’s play “was about as good as we have seen him play.”

The A’s conclude the four-game series with the White Sox Thursday afternoon. Game time will be 12:35 PM PT. Kendall Graveman will start for Oakland, and they will face the well-travelled Mat Latos. Latos will be making his first start as a member of the White Sox.

The Golden State Warriors’ Festus Ezeli was in the crowd, and he received a nice ovation from the fans. Former A’s pitcher, Dallas Braden, was here to broadcast the game on ESPN and visited with the fans in right field beating on a drum to get a little excitement going.

Attendance was 16,468 and time of game was two hours and fifty-four minutes.