White Sox starter Sean Burke didn't have much fun with his new toys on Saturday, and when his friends with gloves made their presences known, the afternoon at Wrigley Field didn't get any more enjoyable.
His seam effects changeup faded arm side, but fluttered belt-high as Pete Crow-Armstrong flicked it center to cap an ultimately decisive four-run Cubs second inning. The first thigh-high sinker that Burke threw to Dansby Swanson was drilled into left field at 100.6 mph to kick off said inning. The second one was fouled off, but the third sinker he threw Swanson ended up in the left-center seats three innings later for a solo shot. And for the second-straight day, the Cubs offense broke through too persistently for any notions of a Sox comeback to take hold.
"It was awful," Burke said of his command. "It was terrible. My last two starts, it’s been terrible. You can’t go out there and walk five people and expect to have good results."
However inglorious, five innings of work was still in sight for Burke when he induced a slow roller up the middle from Miguel Amaya. Instead, Lenyn Sosa threw an alley oop to Tim Elko at first when a simple chest pass would have ended the inning before the lineup turned over. Burke was never going to face Crow-Armstrong a fourth time, but he induced a high fly into the right field corner from No. 9 hitter Vidal Bruján that Joshua Palacios never deluded anyone into thinking he had a bead on. As it dropped for an embarrassing run-scoring automatic double, Burke strode off facing a 6-3 deficit, and young Sox hitters deserve most of the credit for making the box score look closer than it felt.
"We've talked about it," Will Venable said of the windy conditions. "It happened yesterday, it happened again today. It's part of playing here and it cost us again. Just one of those things where you've got to battle, do everything you can and hope you're able to make plays."
For the second-straight afternoon, a first inning dinger provided some false hope. Sound off in the comments as to whether Chase Meidroth's first career home run was more surprising than Miguel Vargas collecting 11 total bases in a single game. But the Lilliputian infielder unloaded on a helmet-high Matt Boyd heater the same way Aaron Judge would turn on a fastball at his waist. Since that basically describes the same pitch, maybe we should have seen Meidroth's clout coming, but he quickly reverted back to singles slapping en route to a three-hit day.
"Just trying to put the bat on the ball and get to first base," Meidroth said. "Anything extra is like a bonus. But, as many times as I can touch first base for other guys like Miguel, [Andrew] Vaughn, Luis [Robert Jr.] and [Edgar] Quero. I’m trying to get on first base so we can score some runs."
Two innings later, Meidroth followed a Michael A. Taylor single with one of his own, before the pair pulled off a double steal to put the latter in position to score on Vargas' sacrifice fly to left. Quero flied out to end the third, but out of the collective 0-fer put up by Sox’ 3-4 hitters, Robert half of it is more concerning.
Tim Elko drilled a 3-1 Matt Boyd heater to dead center for a solo shot in the fifth, briefly making it a one-run game again before the floor gave way in the bottom half. But all moments of daylight for the Sox were filled by walks--five for Burke, an intentional one for a recently recalled Jared Shuster and five more (one intentional) for Mike Vasil, in addition to a balk to push a pair of Cubs runners in scoring position in the seventh.
Other than a Nico Hoerner RBI single in the eighth, Vasil largely pitched around it, keeping his ERA at 1.98 despite a strikeout-to-walk ratio that tells a story of treading water. But the Cubs had the knockout blow loaded on the bases all afternoon, even though they never managed/needed to land it.
"Everything is part of the process and coming together as a team," Elko said. "We want to win every time we step out on the field. It didn’t end up happening today, but you’ve got to keep going, move on to tomorrow and keep chugging on for wins."
Bullet points:
*Burke didn't issue any walks in his first two outings of the season. He's walked 27 (compared to 29 strikeouts) in 37 2/3 innings since.
*The 11 walks issued by White Sox pitching is a season-high, thankfully. So were the six stolen bases allowed.
"Not very well," Venable said for how the Sox controlled the running game. "But we know that about these guys and it's tough to slow them down. At the same time we know that's what they do. We want to make sure we're finding our balance between slide steps and controlling the running game and also executing pitches."
*Meidroth had three hits to pace the Sox. The infielder has never matched the 10 home runs he hit as a junior at University of San Diego in his any of his full professional seasons. But he has four combined between Triple-A Charlotte and Chicago in just 32 games this year.
*Vargas fouled a ball off his left foot/shin in the eighth and looked more than a little bothered by it, but stayed in the game and nearly doubled on the next pitch.
*Vaughn was pretty slow out of the box on a dropped third strike that got far enough away from Cubs catcher Miguel Amaya that he might have had a chance to reach if he recognized it right away. He did not.
"As a hitter if the ball is not in the dirt, you're not thinking run to first base," Venable said. "So I think he was a little slow to realize what was going on."
*Crow-Armstrong has eight RBI in this series, where as the White Sox have scored six runs.
