Erick Fedde works 6 scoreless innings, Tommy Pham keeps hitting as White Sox beat Guardians 3-2

CHICAGO (AP) — Erick Fedde worked six scoreless innings, Tommy Pham had two hits and an RBI and the Chicago White Sox held on to beat the Cleveland Guardians 3-2 on Thursday night.

Chicago won its second straight and for the fourth time in six games to improve to 10-28. The White Sox no longer have the worst record in the majors, moving ahead of the Colorado Rockies, who are 9-28.

Last-place Chicago is 2-2 against AL Central-leading Cleveland.

“We're playing great," Fedde said. “We always felt like this team had potential. We had some bad injury luck, especially all together and it was a low-point for us.

"But I think over our last 12, 13 games we're playing at least .500 ball and that's who we expect to be and we just want to grow from that."

José Ramírez and Josh Naylor launched back-to-back solo homers off Chicago reliever John Brebbia with two outs in the eighth inning as Cleveland cut Chicago’s lead to 3-2.

The 36-year-old Pham, who doubled, is batting .313 in 12 games since joining the White Sox.

Andrew Vaughn and Paul DeJong added RBIs for Chicago.

Chicago rookie Bryan Ramos had a single and double in his sixth game since being recalled from Double-A Birmingham. He is 7 for 18 (.389) in his major league debut season. Eloy Jiménez had two hits, including a double to the base of the wall.

Fedde (3-0) allowed just three singles, walked none and struck out three through sixth innings. He credited command of a mix of pitches, especially his changeup.

“This team wants to lean on me to be a guy they can trust to go deep,” Fedde said. “I want to be that guy and it’s important to do that moving forward."

But the Guardians lined three straight singles off the 31-year-old right-hander to open the seventh and load the bases. Jordan Leasure entered and struck out Bo Naylor and Tyler Freeman. Kyle Manzardo grounded out to end the threat.

“He (Leasure) has electric stuff and when he puts it on display it's great,” Fedde said. “My ERA thanks him greatly.”

After Ramirez his his eighth homer and Naylor tagged Brebbia for his 10th in the eighth inning, Michael Kopech entered and got the final four outs for his fourth save.

“Cleveland's played good ball this year," Kopech said "Our best can beat their best and hopefully we can continue doing that against better and better teams, and get ourselves out of the hole that we build for ourselves and move on to a pretty good season.”

The White Sox hit the ball hard off Cleveland starter Ben Lively (1-2). The right-hander allowed three runs on eight hits, including four doubles, in 5 2/3 innings.

“The first few innings he was battling his delivery,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “They were on the sinker. They got on him early, but he really settled in.”

The White Sox took a 1-0 lead in the first on doubles by Pham and Vaughn. Vaughn’s hard liner hit the right-center wall and narrowly missed being a home run.

DeJong and Pham each drove in a run with singles in the second to increase Chicago’s lead to 3-0.

The Guardians acquired RHP Darren McCaughin from Miami for cash on Thursday, then optioned him to Triple-A Columbus. McCaughin appeared in one game this season for the Marlins, allowing eight runs in 4 2/3 innings.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Guardians: Transferred RHP Gavin Williams (right elbow inflammation) to the 60-day injured list

White Sox: All-Star CF Luis Robert Jr. is running at about 70% in his rehab from a right hip flexor strain, manager Pedro Grifol said. Robert suffered “a minor setback” a few days ago in training at the team’s facility in Glendale, Arizona. Grifol hopes the speedy slugger, out since April 5, will be up to “90% running in the next five, seven days” and then progress to baseball activities.

UP NEXT:

Guardians RHP Carlos Carrasco (2-2, 5.67) faces White Sox LHP Garrett Crochet (2-4, 5.31) on Friday night.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

Chicago White Sox pitcher Michael Kopech begins to celebrate as the stadium lights flash after the team's 3-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians in a baseball game Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Cleveland Guardians' Josh Naylor looks toward teammates in the dugout after hitting a home run off Chicago White Sox pitcher John Brebbia during the eighth inning of a baseball game Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Chicago White Sox's Tommy Pham looks back at the dugout after his leadoff double off Cleveland Guardians starting pitcher Ben Lively during the first inning of a baseball game Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Cleveland Guardians' Tyler Freeman strikes out with the bases loaded during the seventh inning of the team's baseball game against the Chicago White Sox, Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Chicago White Sox starting pitcher Erick Fedde delivers to a Cleveland Guardians batter during the first inning of a baseball game Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Chicago White Sox's Tommy Pham hits an RBI single off Cleveland Guardians pitcher Ben Lively during the second inning of a baseball game Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

JERUSALEM (AP) — The helicopter crash in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and other officials were killed is likely to reverberate across the Middle East, where Iran’s influence runs wide and deep.

That's because Iran has spent decades supporting armed groups and militants in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and the Palestinian territories, allowing it to project power and potentially deter attacks from the United States or Israel, the sworn enemies of its 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Tensions have never been higher than they were last month, when Iran under Raisi and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei launched hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at Israel in response to an airstrike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria that killed two Iranian generals and five officers.

Israel, with the help of the United States, Britain, Jordan and others, intercepted nearly all the projectiles. In response, Israel apparently launched its own strike against an air defense radar system in the Iranian city of Isfahan, causing no casualties but sending an unmistakable message.

The sides have waged a shadow war of covert operations and cyberattacks for years, but the exchange of fire in April was their first direct military confrontation.

The ongoing war between Israel and Hamas has drawn in other Iranian allies, with each attack and counterattack threatening to set off a wider war.

It's a combustible mix that could be ignited by unexpected events, such as Sunday's deadly crash.

Israel has long viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of Tehran's controversial nuclear program, its ballistic missiles and its support for armed groups sworn to Israel's destruction.

Iran views itself as the chief patron of Palestinian resistance to Israeli rule, and top officials for years have called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Raisi, who was a hard-liner viewed as a protégé and possible successor of Khamenei, chastised Israel last month, saying “the Zionist Israeli regime has been committing oppression against the people of Palestine for 75 years.”

“First of all we have to expel the usurpers, secondly we should make them pay the cost for all the damages they have created, and thirdly, we have to bring to justice the oppressor and usurper," he said.

Israel is believed to have carried out numerous attacks over the years targeting senior Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists.

There is no evidence Israel was involved in Sunday's helicopter crash, and Israeli officials have not commented on the incident.

Arab countries on the Persian Gulf have also long viewed Iran with suspicion, a key factor in the decision of the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize relations with Israel in 2020, and of Saudi Arabia to consider such a move.

Iran has provided financial and other support over the years to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which led the Oct. 7 attack into Israel that triggered the Gaza war, and the smaller but more radical Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which took part in it. But there is no evidence that Iran was directly involved in the attack.

Since the start of the war, Iran's leaders have expressed solidarity with the Palestinians. Their allies in the region have gone much further.

Lebanon's Hezbollah militant group, Iran's most militarily advanced proxy, has waged a low-intensity conflict with Israel since the start of the Gaza war. The two sides have traded strikes on a near-daily basis along the Israel-Lebanon border, forcing tens of thousands of people on both sides to flee.

So far, however, the conflict has not boiled over into a full-blown war that would be disastrous for both countries.

Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq launched repeated attacks on U.S. bases in the opening months of the war but pulled back after U.S. retaliatory strikes for a drone attack that killed three American soldiers in January.

Yemen's Houthi rebels, another ally of Iran, have repeatedly targeted international shipping in what they portray as a blockade of Israel. Those strikes, which often target ships with no apparent links to Israel, have also drawn U.S.-led retaliation.

Iran's influence extends beyond the Middle East and its rivalry with Israel.

Israel and Western countries have long suspected Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons in the guise of a peaceful atomic program in what they see as a threat to non-proliferation everywhere.

Then-President Donald Trump's withdrawal from a landmark nuclear pact between Iran and world powers in 2018, and his imposition of crushing sanctions, led Iran to gradually abandon all the limits placed on its program by the deal.

These days, Iran is enriching uranium to up to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%. Surveillance cameras installed by the U.N. nuclear agency have been disrupted, and Iran has barred some of the agency's most experienced inspectors. Iran has always insisted its nuclear program is for purely peaceful purposes, but the United States and others believe it had an active nuclear weapons program until 2003.

Israel is widely believed to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East but has never acknowledged having such weapons.

Iran has also emerged as a key ally of Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, and is widely accused of supplying exploding drones that have wreaked havoc on Ukraine's cities. Raisi himself denied the allegations last fall in an interview with The Associated Press, saying Iran had not supplied such weapons since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022.

Iranian officials have made contradictory comments about the drones, while U.S. and European officials say the sheer number being used in the war in Ukraine shows that the flow of such weapons has intensified since the war began.

In this photo provided by Moj News Agency, rescue teams' vehicles are seen near the site of the incident of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Varzaghan in northwestern Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (Azin Haghighi/Moj News Agency via AP)

An Iranian woman prays for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

People pray for President Ebrahim Raisi in a ceremony at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, May 19, 2024. A helicopter carrying President Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other officials apparently crashed in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran on Sunday, sparking a massive rescue operation in a fog-shrouded forest as the public was urged to pray. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

FILE - People gather around a component from an intercepted ballistic missile that fell near the Dead Sea in Israel, Saturday, April 20, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Itamar Grinberg, File)

FILE - Iranian worshippers chant slogans during an anti-Israeli gathering after Friday prayers in Tehran, Iran, Friday, April 19, 2024. The apparent crash of a helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the country's foreign minister and other top officials is likely to reverberate across the Middle East. Tensions have soared since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, and Israel and Iran directly traded fire for the first time ever in April. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)