Korey Lee flew into town and crashed at a friend’s house. Then he caught his first game for the White Sox.
Lee, one of multiple prospects acquired by the Sox before the Aug. 1 trade deadline — two of them catchers — came from the Astros on July 28 for right-hander Kendall Graveman. He was called up from Triple-A Charlotte on Thursday and got the start in the Sox’ 8-5 loss to the Athletics before a paid crowd of 13,247 at Guaranteed Rate Field.
“I was ecstatic,” Lee, 25, said of finding out the Sox were calling him up. “You want to be up here; this is where real baseball is.”
Lee stayed at former Cal teammate and new Sox teammate Andrew Vaughn’s place.
“He has an extra room,” Lee said. “Talked to him, talked about the team, talked about what we want to do. I think we’re in a good spot right now.”
The Sox are not in a good spot with a 50-78 record but are trying to shore up a lacking catching corps by adding Lee and prospect Edgar Quero in trades. Quero came with left-hander Ky Bush in the deal with the Angels for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez.
MLB Pipeline ranks Quero, who’s at Double-A Birmingham, as the Sox’ No. 3 prospect. Lee, an Astros first-round pick in 2019, is ranked 19th.
“He really looked good,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “He moved around well. There was some pitch-selection stuff, some positioning stuff to go over. He’s got one heck of an arm. He knows what he’s doing receiving. We’ve just got to create some better angles on some of those pitches.”
Between Charlotte and the Astros’ Triple-A squad at Sugar Land, Lee was batting .278/.325/.386 with five home runs, 36 RBI, 39 runs scored and 13 stolen bases in 82 games.
He appeared in 12 games with the Astros in 2022, going 4-for-25 with no homers.
Lee went 1-for-4 with an infield single and made a throwing error, yanking a toss to the shortstop side of second base on Ryan Noda’s stolen base in the A’s two-run seventh. He threw out Jonah Bride attempting to steal second in the ninth.
Catcher Carlos Perez, who was batting .241/.267/.345 in 18 games over three stints with the Sox, was optioned to Charlotte.
Five homers for Athletics
Jesse Scholtens had his second straight rough start, allowing three home runs, and relievers Jimmy Lambert and Lane Ramsey also gave up homers. Scholtens, who walked five in three innings in his previous start against the Rockies, walked none but gave up five runs in 5⅔ innings.
Shea Langeliers hit two homers against Scholtens, and Brent Rooker, Zack Gelof and Tony Kemp also homered for the A’s, who own a major-league-worst 37-91 record.
The Sox lost for the ninth time in the last 12 games.
Robert hits homer, steals one
Luis Robert Jr. hit a 444-foot home run, his 34th of the season, and leaped above the center-field wall to take a homer away from Rooker.
Elvis Andrus and Andrew Benintendi also homered on a night featuring eight long balls.
