White Sox Rise in the Head, 5-2 : Baseball: Victory over Angesl moves Chicago past Oakland into AL West Lead.

Like the weather, the Chicago White Sox aren’t to be believed.

The White Sox, among the worst teams in baseball a year ago, vaulted past the world champion Oakland Athletics into the American League West lead by beating the Angels, 5-2, Wednesday at Anaheim Stadium.

The victory put Chicago four percentage points ahead of the A’s.

“So what?” Manager Jeff Torborg said after the White Sox completed an overpowering three-game sweep of the Angels and won their seventh consecutive game.

“What is this, only June 27. We’re going to do the same thing we’ve been doing, pardon the cliche, taking it one game at a time.”

The victory marked the first time since April 1982 that the White Sox swept consecutive three-game series on the road. They took three in a row at Oakland over the weekend.

Chicago’s road record is 21-10.

Torborg, in his second year at the White Sox helm, may have sounded as if he was irritated by the questioning, but he was grinning broadly while he spoke.

Ron Kittle had three hits, including two solo homers, and Sammy Sosa also had three hits, including a solo homer on the first pitch of the game by Chuck Finley (10-4).

Eric King (8-1) shut out the Angels through the first seven innings.

“What a road trip,” Torborg said of the 6-0 visit to Oakland and Anaheim. “We beat (Scott) Sanderson, (Mike) Moore and (Dave) Stewart in Oakland, then (Mark) Langston, (Bert) Blyleven and Finley here.

“I don’t think it would have been realistic to expect us to beat all those pitchers.”

After going into the All-Star break 24 games under .500 last season, the White Sox came back and played one game better than .500 the rest of the way.

But they still wound up 29 1/2 games behind the A’s.

“We knew we were going to turn things around, but we weren’t going for any cheap fixes,” Torborg said. “We were looking to ‘91, ’92.

“Holy mackerel! We didn’t expect anything like this so soon.”

Kittle’s homers gave him three in three consecutive at-bats. He homered in his last at-bat in an 11-9 victory over the Angels Tuesday night. He also had a single in the eighth and went three for four.

In 100-plus degree temperatures, King allowed four hits and two runs in 7 1/3 innings. Scott Radinsky retired the side in the ninth for his third save.

After Sosa’s leadoff homer, Kittle homered three batters later to give Chicago a 2-0 lead.

Kittle’s 13th homer, in the fourth inning, made it 3-0. It marked the 16th two-homer game for Kittle, who had only 10 hits in his previous 78 at-bats.

Sosa’s run-scoring single in the fifth inning made it 4-0 and Carlos Martinez singled home another run in the sixth.

“I think the team we just got through playing are the real White Sox,” California outfielder Dante Bichette said. “They’ve got a young club with good pitching and clutch hitting.

“They’re for real.”

Finley, in one of his poorest outings of the season, lasted just 4 1/3 innings, giving up eight hits and four runs.

The loss provided a number of forgettable firsts for the Angel left-hander, who had not given up a first-inning homer in his first 77 major league starts; had never allowed three homers in one game; and was unbeaten (6-0) at Anaheim Stadium this year.

Angel Notes

Chicago had not been in first place in the division this deep into a season since they won to win their last division title, in 1983. Since then, their latest date in first was June 20, 1985. . . . The White Sox have won 13 of 14 on the road and 16 of their last 19. . . . They are 12-2 in games Eric King has started this year. . . . Ron Kittle’s second homer was his 135th with the White Sox, tying him with Minnie Minoso for third place on the club’s all-time list. . . . Chuck Finley had an earned-run average of 2.36 going into the game, second in the league behind King.