Oakland A’s win 2nd in a row as Mengden shackles White Sox lineup

OAKLAND - Daniel Mengden carried a shutout into the ninth inning in his best start of the season and the Oakland Athletics beat the Chicago White Sox 8-1 before another sparse crowd at the Coliseum on Monday night.

Matt Olson homered, Jed Lowrie drove in three runs and Stephen Piscotty had two hits and an RBI for the A’s. Oakland has won consecutive games for the first time this season.

It was Chicago’s first game since it won in Minnesota on Thursday. The final three games of that series were postponed by snow.

Mengden (2-2) had allowed three earned runs or more in each of his first three starts but was dominant against Chicago. The right-hander struck out six, walked one and retired 18 of 20 before leaving after giving up Jose Abreu’s leadoff home run in the ninth. That was just Chicago’s sixth hit.

Olson homered on starter Reynaldo Lopez’s first pitch off the fourth. That ended a career-high tying 0-for-12 slump for the A’s first baseman.

Lowrie had an RBI groundout in the seventh and a two-run single in the eighth.

The A’s also made a pair of defensive gems.

Center fielder Mark Canha made a diving catch on Abreu’s sinking liner to end the third. An inning earlier, the A’s turned a 5-3-6 double play.

The game was played before an announced crowd of 7,479, the second smallest of the season at the Coliseum. It was the fourth time this year the A’s have attracted fewer than 10,000, although it didn’t help that the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors were playing Game 2 of their Western Conference playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs at the same time next door at Oracle Arena.

Today’s game should attract a much larger crowd because tickets are free. Vouchers were previously given out online, and no walkups are available.

Lopez (0-2) yielded four hits and two runs over six innings.