White Sox’ Floyd fizzles in poor start

In the not-so-distant past, the White Sox would head out to Oakland and try to beat the A’s 2-1 or 1-0.

Pitching always seems to rule in the spacious Coliseum, and having to deal with the likes of Oakland starters Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Barry Zito, Dave Stewart and Bob Welch was never easy.

The A’s have since restocked with quality arms like Brett Anderson, Gio Gonzalez and early Cy Young favorite Trevor Cahill (6-0, 1.72 ERA), whom the Sox face Sunday before returning home from a nine-game West Coast road trip.

On Saturday, the White Sox seemingly caught a break when they drew Tyson Ross, who was promoted from the bullpen after another top starter, Dallas Braden, went down with a serious shoulder injury.

Instead, it was another in a long line of offensive failures in the Bay Area for the Sox, who fell 6-2.

And once again, it was Paul Konerko or nothing.

The White Sox’ captain hit a 2-run homer in the sixth inning to prevent a shutout, but Ross had his way the rest of the afternoon.

“Ross threw the ball well,” Sox manager Ozzie Guillen told reporters. “We’ve only seen him out of the bullpen once, but today he was good. I don’t know how they do it; they find pitchers everywhere.

“Every time you come to this town, it’s just one after another after another. It’s always been like that. Every time you come to Oakland, you’re going to face good pitching.”

So it’s a tip of the cap to Ross, but not so much for White Sox starter Gavin Floyd.

Extremely sharp with 8 shutout innings in his last start, at Seattle, Floyd didn’t have his good curveball, or anything else, against Oakland.

Facing a weak-hitting A’s team that came in ranked near the bottom of every offensive category in the majors, Floyd lasted just 4 innings and allowed 5 runs on 9 hits.

“I was struggling right out of the gate,” Floyd told reporters. “The ball was up and I tried everything I could to bring the ball down in the strike zone.”

Said Guillen: “Gavin was struggling the whole game. He was driving the wrong way, almost the whole game, against traffic. He had a tough time finding the plate and being consistent.”

In the first seven games on the road trip, the White Sox’ offense batted .294 and averaged almost 5 runs.

But several hitters are still trying to get into a groove — Juan Pierre, Alex Rios, Gordon Beckham, Brent Morel — and now the Sox have to deal with Cahill to end the trip.

Cahill’s not likely to be much better than Ross, who allowed 2 runs on 6 hits over 7 innings while striking out eight.

“He’s really good,” designated hitter Adam Dunn told reporters. “I didn’t realize how good of stuff he had until I actually stepped in the box. He had one of those sliders that you don’t really see every day. He changes speeds on it so good. He’s just got a live arm.”

sgregor@dailyherald.com