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Ejections highlight White Sox's loss to Angels

The White Sox played a terrible game against the Angels in a 9-3 loss Thursday afternoon at Guaranteed Rate Field, but at least things perked up at the end.

There was the bottom of the seventh inning, when the Sox loaded the bases with no outs before settling for 2 runs.

The top of the ninth was even better.

After hitting Los Angeles star Shohei Ohtani in the right calf on his third errant pitch, White Sox reliever Mike Wright was ejected by home-plate umpire Chris Conroy.

That brought Sox manager Tony La Russa out of the dugout, and he was tossed from the game by crew chief Bill Welke.

La Russa insists Wright was not throwing at Ohtani.

Angels manager Joe Maddon insists he was.

"Absolutely," Maddon said. "It was retaliatory. We knew that."

La Russa was still upset about Tuesday night's game against Los Angeles.

Luis Robert was hit in the helmet and Jose Abreu and Yoan Moncada also were plunked by Angels pitching.

There were no warnings or ejections in that game, and Wright was instantly thrown out.

"It was not intentional," La Russa said of Wright's pitch. "And the reasoning did not make sense. (Welke) felt there was stuff flying in that first game, it was all us getting hit. He noticed all that, but they didn't do anything. They didn't do anything that day, didn't do anything (Wednesday).

"We pitched Ohtani tough all series. He got a couple soft hits against us, but (Welke) ruled that was intentional and he made a mistake. It wasn't consistent with the umpiring, with his umpiring judgment throughout the series."

It was a tough series for the White Sox, all the way around.

After dropping their second straight game to the Angels, the Sox's magic number still sits at 7.

Reynaldo Lopez started for the Sox on Thursday, and the right-hander allowed 7 runs (6 earned) on 7 hits and 1 walk over 4 innings.

"I had command of my fastball, curveball and changeup, but the slider wasn't working today," Lopez said through a translator. "It also happened, a few things I couldn't control during the game. I had a bad day. Everybody is going to have a bad day."

The game got away from Lopez and the White Sox in the fourth inning, when Los Angeles scored 5 runs on 4 hits and errors by shortstop Tim Anderson and left fielder Eloy Jimenez.

In his second game back after being on the injured list with a strained left hamstring, Anderson made another error in the seventh.

"I know I wear you out with it, my men, not machines thing," La Russa said. "But they're men, not machines. They get in a little funk. That's what momentum's about. You get into a good thing and it's a good aura, good vibe.

"You get into a funk and stuff gets worse. We were funky today."

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