Santiago gets a start and stops A's

CHICAGO -- Hector Santiago pitched like a guy trying to stake a claim as a starter at the major league level on Sunday, and the Chicago White Sox took advantage of it.

After dropping the first two games of a four-game weekend series against the Oakland A's, the White Sox battled back to earn a split by taking the last two games, winning the final game, 4-2, at U.S. Cellular Field.

"He's a major-league pitcher and he did a great job of going through a tough lineup and giving us an opportunity to win," Chicago manager Robin Ventura said of Santiago, who has bounced between the bullpen and the rotation because of injuries and started in place of injured Jake Peavy.

"He's valuable and we've known he's valuable. He's a major league pitcher and you've got to figure out a way to use him. With Jake going down, he's the guy that slides right in and takes over for him, and you feel good about it."

The White Sox (27-34) also feel good about battling back against the hottest team in baseball this weekend.

The A's (38-27) had won 18 of 21 games after Friday's victory to take sole possession of first place in the American League West from the Texas Rangers.

Chicago promptly knocked them back into second place on Sunday, a half-game behind the victorious Rangers.

After losing 10 of 11 games and sinking to nine-games under the .500 mark, the White Sox have won two in a row and hope it sparks better days ahead.

"We've got guys that are still motivated and prepared and ready to go," Ventura said. "I think that's the thing. You go through a tough stretch and it's hard offensively to maybe be up for it, but these guys are still grinding. They're still getting after it."

Chicago also came up with timely hitting for the second game in a row to make sure another strong start by one of its pitchers wasn't wasted.

Tyler Flowers and Alex Rios each hit solo home runs, and Gordon Beckham drove in a run with a two-out double in a two-run fourth inning.

That was all the White Sox pitching staff needed.

Santiago gave Chicago another strong outing a day after John Danks stymied the A's in a 4-1 victory. He went 6 1/3 innings, allowing two runs, four hits and three walks while striking out six.

"I'm always ready for the opportunity to (start)," Santiago said. "I knew that coming into Spring Training it was pretty much impossible (to make the rotation) with all the starters and the guys we have, but when stuff like this happens you take advantage of it and run with it.

"We're all hoping for Peavy to come back as soon as possible, but for now I enjoy the role."

The White Sox have enjoyed the way their bullpen performed the past couple games.

Matt Lindstrom and Matt Thornton combined to finish off the seventh on Sunday, and Jesse Crain cruised through the eighth before Addison Reed closed it out for his 19th save.

Coco Crisp got the scoring started with a solo home run in the third to give Oakland a 1-0 lead, but the White Sox scored the next three runs to take a lead they wouldn't relinquish.

After Flowers' solo home run in the bottom of the third tied it, 1-1, the White Sox plated two runs in their half of the fourth on three hits to give Santiago a 3-1 lead.

One third-inning run scored on Conor Gillaspie's sacrifice fly, while the second was driven in by Beckham's double.

Santiago, backed by a couple of nice defensive plays at third Gillaspie, settled into a nice rhythm following Crisp's home run. He retired 12 of the next 15 hitters until giving way to the bullpen with one out in the seventh.

Santiago allowed one more run, which was unearned after Josh Reddick made it 3-2 by scoring on Thornton's botched pickoff attempt.

"His ball was getting on you, at least better than we saw at our place when he was relieving," A's manager Bob Melvin said of Santiago, who was touching the mid-90s with his fastball.

"He's got that herky-jerky motion and the ball gets on you're a little bit. We saw some 95s out of him today and there was more life on his (pitches). We were behind some balls early against him and he was pitching in and then further in today."

Rios added a solo home run to left center off A's starter A.J. Griffin with one out in the eighth for an insurance run, making it 4-2 for Reed.

"I felt like I was still making pretty good pitches," said Griffin, who gave up all four runs in his 7 1/3 innings. "I got the first guy out, got (Ramirez) to roll over on a slider and then just a good job by Rios. It wasn't a horrible pitch, but it was a pitch he could handle."

Yoenis Cespedes went 2-for-4 and Crisp went 1-for-4 with the home run to lead the A's, who finished a seven-game trip to Milwaukee and Chicago with a 4-3 record.

Oakland, however, lost two games in a row for the first time since May 14-15, when the A's dropped two straight against Texas.

"We've been doing a lot of shaking hands after games, I know that," Melvin said. "Losing two in a row does feel like an oddity. ... You always want to play over .500 on the road (and) we did.

"We would've liked to finish one off and gotten one more, but I'm always going to say that."

NOTES: Jesse Crain's inning of relief in the eighth upped his career-high streak of scoreless appearances to 25, spread over 24 innings. ... Paul Konerko's start at first base tied him with Nellie Fox for second all-time in White Sox history with 2,115 games. ... Former White Sox manager Tony LaRussa and former White Sox pitcher LaMarr Hoyt threw out ceremonial first pitches. ... Oakland finished up a stretch of 17 games played in the same number of days, with 12 of those games on the road -- including the last seven on a trip that concluded Sunday. The A's will finally get an off day on Monday before hosting the New York Yankees on Tuesday. "We've had a long stretch of games here," A's manager Bob Melvin said. "We're a little bit tired right now. Usually when you're playing well you don't want the off days, but in this particular case, I think we're all looking forward to the off day."