WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Chicago White Sox starter Noah Schultz earned his first major-league victory on Sunday, allowing one run over five innings in a 7-4 win against the Athletics in front of 12,070 at Sutter Health Park.He received plenty of offensive support, with Derek Hill (solo), Miguel Vargas (two-run), Munetaka Murakami (two-run) and Colson Montgomery (solo) hitting home runs. The Sox held on to win two of three in the series.“It was a great team win, a great series win,” Schultz said. “Hopeful to keep going.”Here are three takeaways from the series:Schultz is locked inSchultz displayed a strong command in his 82-pitch outing.

He allowed one hit, a home run to Darell Hernáiz in the second inning, struck out six and walked one.“Being able to fill up the zone,” Schultz said of what worked on Sunday.Schultz struck out at least one batter in each of his final four innings of work on Sunday, including recording two strikeouts in both the second and fourth innings.“Noah was really good,” manager Will Venable said. “Got back to the fastball, that’s obviously among his best weapons. And really got to that and did a nice job of mixing the four-seamer, the two-seamer.

Ended up landing some sweepers in the zone, the cutter was in the zone, which is a big pitch for him, too.”Schultz learned a lot going from his first big-league start on Tuesday to his second on Sunday.“Learned a lot about myself, a lot of things,” Schultz said. “Calm myself down with nerves, and stuff like that, that hopefully are gone. Getting ahead of guys and attacking hitters.”Saturday’s 11th inning features an interesting debateThe Sox faced an interesting dilemma in the 11th inning on Saturday.The Athletics had the potential game-winning run on third with one out and Max Muncy at the plate.

Lawrence Butler was on deck, followed by the pitcher’s slot that came into existence when Hernáiz ran for catcher Austin Wynns in the 10th and the Athletics moved Shea Langeliers from designated hitter to behind the plate.The Athletics had utilized all of their position players off the bench. Did the Sox consider walking Muncy and Butler to load the bases to face a pitcher?“Yeah, that’s a tough one,” Venable said before Sunday’s game. “As we were thinking about that, as I’m thinking about that and talking it through, we were just in a situation with (reliever Lucas) Sims in kind of a big spot with the bases loaded, and against Tampa (Bay) had a couple walks there (in Thursday’s 5-3 loss), I just wasn’t comfortable putting him in that situation.“And so it was hoping for some spin to expand against Muncy there, then walk Butler and deal with the pitcher in a first-and-third situation with two outs.

Obviously, that’s not what happened. That was the calculus, and one of those that didn’t work out, but that’s kind of what my mindset was and thinking about it.”The Sox decided to pitch to Muncy, who brought home Jacob Wilson with a game-ending sacrifice fly to left field as the Athletics won 7-6.Murakami has a grand seriesSox starting pitcher Davis Martin described Murakami’s grand slam in the seventh inning of Friday’s 9-2 victory as “incredible.”“Guy’s got stupid juice, came at the right time when we needed it,” Martin said Friday night.Murakami cleared the center field batter’s eye for his first major-league slam.

It went an estimated 431 feet.“Yeah, I got more than 431,” Venable said before Saturday’s game. “I don’t know who’s doing that calculation, but that ball was touched right there. That was a good one.”The slam capped a three-hit night for Murakami.“Individually, it’s really big for me to hit a grand slam,” Murakami said through an interpreter on Friday.

“As well as put additional points on that board. Both ways, I’m really happy with the outcome.”Murakami homered again on Saturday, this time leading off the seventh inning. Earlier in Saturday’s game, the Sox got home runs from Montgomery (solo) and Andrew Benintendi (three-run).The home runs continued for Murakami and the Sox on Sunday.

Hill (solo) and Vargas (two-run) both homered in the second inning. Murakami connected for a two-run home run to right, which went 425 feet, in the fifth inning. He has eight home runs this season.Montgomery homered later in the fifth inning.“I just love having all the points come up from all the lineup and everybody contributing to the team,” Murakami said after Sunday’s victory.____