OAKLAND -- As Jace Peterson’s line drive sailed into right field at 101.5 miles an hour, White Sox right fielder Clint Frazier changed direction twice trying to track down the ball. He finally had to drop to a knee to catch the final out of Sunday afternoon’s 8-7 victory over the A’s at the Oakland Coliseum a split second before it would have hit the ground.

The White Sox were fortunate that the A’s ran out of outs. The way the game was trending, with an exhausted bullpen teetering after the offense built an 8-3 lead, Chicago very well could have been swept by a team that might challenge the 1962 Mets’ all-time record of 120 losses in a season and gone home after what would have been a 2-5 trip.

Then again, there are no bad wins in Major League Baseball.

“Never a dull moment,” manager Pedro Grifol said with an expression that conveyed relief more than celebration.

“There’s a reason things happen like this. Today we needed every single run, every single at-bat, every single pitch to get this one. Hopefully down the road, they can become a little easier, but I’m not expecting them to.”

There were many ways to view the White Sox 3-4 trip through Anaheim and Oakland. On one hand, they blew chances to win at least two of the games they dropped. On the other, an offense that has sputtered too many times this season seemed to find something. Over the final five games of the trip, Chicago scored 38 runs on 58 hits -- including 13 doubles and seven home runs -- and 26 walks.

And yet, the White Sox were in danger of losing three of those five games until Frazier fought the elements and caught the final out one batter after he stumbled while charging a Seth Brown liner that should have been the final out. Instead, he had to play it on a hop for a single that brought JJ Bleday home as the A's seventh run.

“We needed that one today. I’m glad we got the job done,” said third baseman Jake Burger, whose seventh-inning homer to straightaway center seemed like extra icing in a game the White Sox were leading 7-3. It wound up the decisive run.

Burger was in a 6-for-57 slump after Saturday’s game and, proving ballplayers will search anywhere for help, sent his wife Ashlyn video to see if she could notice anything. She responded with some hand-drawn diagrams that showed he was standing a bit too upright over the past couple of weeks.

“She was really proud of it,” Burger said. “I’ve got to give her some credit.”

Burger walked during Chicago’s five-run third inning against Oakland starter Paul Blackburn. Catcher Seby Zavala drew a leadoff walk. An Andrew Benintendi single and Tim Anderson sacrifice fly produced the game’s first run. A passed ball and an Eloy Jiménez single made it 2-0. After Burger’s walk, the White Sox added a run when Blackburn hit Gavin Sheets on the foot with the bases loaded, and two more on Zach Remillard’s single.

The white-hot Jiménez left the game after seven innings with an ailment that Grifol would not describe, only saying he was not overly concerned.

Touki Toussaint, making his first start for Chicago, lost his control and gave two runs back in the bottom of the inning, but he stranded the bases loaded on a tough Peterson one-hopper that Anderson dropped down to get before throwing to first. Newly minted All-Star Luis Robert Jr. prevented a bigger inning with a tremendous throw to nail Tyler Wade, who was trying to go first to third on Tony Kemp’s RBI single.

The bullpen bent, allowing five runs over 5 1/3 innings, but did not snap. Despite the numbers, Grifol considered the relievers’ effort a plus given how few of them he had at his disposal.

“Every pitcher we had available, including the one who was in transit, pitched today,” Grifol said, referring to newcomer Bryan Shaw, who flew cross-country Sunday after he was summoned from Triple-A. Shaw allowed a two-run homer in the eighth to Brent Rooker, who was named Oakland’s lone All-Star earlier in the day.

At one point, starter Lucas Giolito was warming in the 'pen. Grifol said it was meant as his normal between-starts throwing session, but the coaches asked him to do it during the game in case they needed him to pitch in an emergency.

Giolito was not one of the five pitchers Grifol used. The fifth was Gregory Santos, who was credited with his first big league save despite allowing the two runs.