Dallas Keuchel felt “normal” during Wednesday’s start against the Oakland Athletics.
“I felt like this was a good one,” the Chicago White Sox left-hander said, “but you’ve got five runs back on the board.”
Keuchel allowed five runs on eight hits in 5? innings for the Sox in a 5-1 loss to the A’s in front of 8,147 at Oakland Coliseum.
“It’s not going right in any of those situation,” Keuchel said. “There wasn’t a ton of hard-hit balls (Wednesday). They just seemed to find holes and they did. We’ve got to hang with them.
“Consistency was there. I felt like myself. I felt like I was staying on line, staying intact, command was there. I was covering the plate a whole bunch more than what I had. It’s what happens.”
Keuchel has allowed at least five earned runs in each of his last four starts. But manager Tony La Russa saw some strides.
“He had a one spot in the fourth and one in the fifth, but he made a lot more good pitches than not,” La Russa said. “One pitch to (Matt) Chapman (a home run in the second). But he really made progress.”
Keuchel (8-9) has one win since the All-Star break — Aug. 16 against the A’s at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“I’ve gotten myself into a rut, especially the last four starts now, even though I felt really, really good,” Keuchel said. “My past eight, nine starts have not been very good at all as a cumulative whole. As a starting pitcher, I think any point in time you can either get in a really good groove or you can kind of sink yourself.
“The way I felt (Wednesday) when I came out and I said to myself, it’s going to be pitch by pitch, let’s just focus on that and everything else is going to take care of itself. And obviously everything didn’t take care of itself. But the process of getting back to who I am, who my career has been, I felt like I was there. That was a huge step in the right direction.”
Offensively, the Sox struggled to string together hits, grounding into three double plays.
A’s starter Frankie Montas induced double plays to end the first, second and fourth. He allowed one run on six hits with seven strikeouts and two walks in seven innings.
Brian Goodwin and Yasmani Grandal each had two hits, but the Sox went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
One of the best chances came in the fifth. The Sox had scored to cut the deficit to 2-1 and had runners on second and third with one out and Luis Robert and Yoán Moncada due up.
Robert bounced back to the pitcher, and both runners held. Moncada flied out to center as the Sox settled for the one run.
“He’s got good stuff,” La Russa said of Montas. “He’s got an array of pitches, a fastball he runs in and one he throws away. He struck (José) Abreu out with one away (in the fourth). And the one that he got in, we rolled to the pull side for a double play. So give him credit.”
The A’s scored once in the bottom of the fifth and two more in the sixth.
A highlight for the Sox came in the ninth when pinch hitter Romy González singled to right for his first major-league hit.
“In the batting practices since he’s joined us, you can see the potential he has,” La Russa said. “The ball really comes off his bat well. He hit some balls pretty deep in batting practice (Wednesday). His first hit was — I think I was saying this to Abreu — that was Abreu-like, when he hits the ball to right field, it was a laser that way.
“The left-hander (reliever Andrew Chafin) was in there, and I thought, ‘Hey, let’s give Romy a shot.’ And he made it work.”
More Top Picks Brita Saff 100
And Keuchel continues to work to get back to form.
“I feel like I’m headed really, really in the right direction back to where I need to be,” he said. “We’ll see the next four starts.”
Sign up for alerts on your phone, desktop and inbox to stay current with the latest news
Sign up for our sports newsletter, delivered daily each morning