OAKLAND, Calif. — Sunday was Michael Kopech’s turn in the Chicago White Sox rotation.
But the team indicated a few days earlier the possibility of skipping his start in Oakland. And before Sunday’s game against the Athletics, the Sox placed the right-hander on the 15-day injured list, retroactive to Thursday, with right shoulder inflammation.
“We just wanted to skip him one more time to make sure he’s ready to go in the second half,” manager Pedro Grifol said before the game at Oakland Coliseum. “That’s basically it.”
Touki Toussaint started Sunday for the Sox, who salvaged the series finale with an 8-7 victory in front of 12,107.
The Sox scored five in the third, with four coming after two outs.
Tim Anderson, Eloy Jiménez, Jake Burger and Zach Remillard had two hits. Jiménez and Remillard had two RBIs. Burger hit a solo homer in the seventh.
“Feel like we’re walking more (five on Sunday), getting to see more pitches throughout each at-bat and piecing it together as a whole offense,” Burger said. “There’s definitely some positives to keep building on.”
Toussaint allowed two runs on three hits with five strikeouts and four walks in 3 2/3 innings. Aaron Bummer came through in relief, allowing one run on two hits with two strikeouts in 2 1/3 innings.
Grifol said Bummer and Keynan Middleton, who worked a perfect seventh, “actually saved the day.”
Right fielder Clint Frazier had an adventurous ninth, slipping while trying to make a play on Seth Brown’s RBI single that brought the A’s within a run. Jace Peterson then hit a liner to right, and Frazier tracked it down for the final out and the first save of Gregory Santos’ career.
It was an interesting ending to an otherwise nightmarish weekend for the Sox, who dropped two of three to the team with the worst record in baseball.
“It’s never a dull moment,” Grifol said. “Today we needed every single run, we needed every single at-bat and every single pitch to get this one.”
Before the game Grifol said the Sox anticipate having Kopech back in the rotation “right after” the July 10-13 All-Star break.
Kopech is 3-7 in 16 starts with a 4.08 ERA and 97 strikeouts in 86 innings. He went four innings while throwing 86 pitches June 21 against the Texas Rangers and four-plus innings while throwing 102 pitches Tuesday against the Los Angeles Angels.
“He has shown us an unbelievable ability to compete without his best stuff,” Grifol said. “He’s shown us dominance with his best stuff. Grit, going out there not feeling great, giving us five, six innings. He did it one time (May 6) in Cincinnati when he wasn’t feeling great but gave us six.
“I’ve always thought prior to coming in here this guy could be one of the best pitchers in the game. I still believe that. He’s just got to navigate through a major-league season and he’s learning how to do that. We gave him a seven-day break (earlier this season) and he came back and had three or four great games.
“Now we’re going to give him another break, give him that second wind, kind of regroup. And he’ll take the ball in the second half and help us stay in this thing or get back to where we feel we can be.”
In the corresponding move, the Sox selected the contract of reliever Bryan Shaw from Triple-A Charlotte.
Shaw, 35, is 2-0 with a 4.03 ERA, 24 strikeouts and four saves in 21 games for Charlotte after signing with the Sox as a minor-league free agent on April 28.
He has a 3.92 ERA, 637 strikeouts, 15 saves and 181 holds in 753 games (two starts) during 12 major-league seasons with Arizona (2011-12), Cleveland (2013-17, ‘21-22), Colorado (2018-19) and Seattle (2020).
Shaw went right to work Sunday, pitching the eighth. The Sox used just about everyone they could to escape with a win and finish the trip 3-4.
“Anytime you come to the West Coast, it’s a tough trip,” Grifol said. “You’ve got to play really good, clean baseball. At times we didn’t. (A) 3-4 (record) was not what we were looking for, but we’re going home to a day off with a win.”
