dpHOUSTON — The White Sox’ pursuit of a division title means Sean Burke pitched on Friday, and wasn’t available to start Game 1 of the wild card series.
The White Sox’ MLB-leading use of openers means that Burke had a long wait to be named the starter of Game 2. But after running a 3.34 ERA in a career-high 172⅓ innings this year, as far as the Sox rotation goes this postseason: he’s their guy.
And it matters to him, perhaps as much as anything.
“This is my life,” Burke told the Sun-Times. “I don’t have family, no girl, no kids. This is all I do.”
Rather than pressure, the feeling Burke expressed while leaning against the railing of the visitors dugout in Daikin Park was gratitude. He posted a 7.61 ERA in limited innings at Triple-A in 2023 while his shoulder barked, and his velocity lagged.
While 2024 would ultimately be the year he made a major-league debut that launched him into the White Sox rotation, it also saw a recurrence of shoulder discomfort at one point.
“I knew I was good, it was more am I ever gonna get my arm feeling good enough to be myself and pitch how I know I can pitch again,” Burke said.
Comparatively, righting his control after two late-season stinkers, ahead of a chance to close out the White Sox’ first playoff series victory in 21 years is less of a concern. After temporarily scrapping it to save bullets, Burke re-introduced his long-toss routine, which alleviated his fastball cutting unexpectedly. He re-emphasized his cutter as another strike-grabbing pitch outside his fastball.
It hasn’t made him infallible on the mound. He wants to kick his tick of reacting to every hard-hit ball driven in the air like it’s about to travel 500 feet. But it has him and the Sox confident he’s back to someone the team can trust in its biggest spot in years. That’s something to be grateful for, especially from his perspective.
“[In 2023], this team was bad, I wasn’t even pitching,” Burke said. “So there was no real vision of this. To have this be the result of that work for me is cool.”
Smith sharp in start
In his 28-inning debut season out of the bullpen, Hagen Smith ran a 1.29 ERA, so all his outings were good. But the second inning of work is where his arm slot would dip, and walks became an issue.
“The arm was getting a little lower, kind of getting scoopier, not able to drive stuff to the right locations,” said pitching coach Zach Bove. “Part of it is just getting used to the [relief] role. Managing the adrenaline, and where you get up and then sit down and get back up.”
He looked used to it opening up the Sox’ bullpen game-led 6-3 victory on Tuesday, stringing together three walk-free, scoreless innings. Most vitally, he induced two weak groundouts from fearsome Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez.
Intentional obstruction
Sam Antonacci running in the path of Christian Walker’s throw to second base in the first inning, triggering a deflection that granted him an extra base, so he could later score on a sacrifice fly?
The Sox teach that.
“That’s a baserunning fundamental that these guys are aware of and implement when the time is appropriate,” said Will Venable when Tristan Peters did it earlier this month in Cleveland.
