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.
Sox bats still frozen, even in California
