The first game of the post-Andrew Vaughn era featured Sean Burke at his best. Those two things probably aren't correlated in any way, but while a connection between the day's biggest events is tortured, the game itself turned out to be a rather straightforward affair.
Burke struck out six over the same number of innings, out-pitching Tyler Mahle to take the opener of the homestand's second series.
Burke bookended his starts with danger, both involving Jake Burger with two on and two out. He walked Sam Haggerty on four pitches to open his evening, then walked Josh Jung after a pair of strikeouts. That brought Burger to the plate, but he was able to drop a curveball in for strike one, then fooled Burger with a slider to get ahead 0-2. After a show-me fastball away, Burke went back to the slider and got Burger to chase low and away to end the threat.
"There's some value in throwing [fastballs] down in the zone too with how much breaking stuff I do throw," Burke said. "If they start to spit at stuff in the dirt, starting to throw that fastball at the bottom of the zone is going to be tough to lay off of too when it's coming out of the same tunnel."
In the sixth, Burke took a comebacker off his left wrist with two outs to keep the inning open, then walked Jung again on four pitches to bring Burger to the plate as the tying run. Venable showed a considerable amount of faith by having nobody warming in the bullpen with Burke at 88 pitches, and Burke showed faith in his fastball by starting Burger off with a heater.
That decision nearly backfired Michael Kopech-style, as Burger blistered a drive to the right-center gap that bounced low off the wall. It resulted in the first Texas run, but it also produced a clean carom to Luis Robert Jr., who made an on-target throw to Lenyn Sosa, who delivered a strong throw to Edgar Quero, who lunged to place the tag on Jung as he slid into home. Home plate Chris Guccione signaled out, Bruce Bochy signaled for a review, and after a tense minute, the play was upheld. (When Quero goes back to look at the film, he might consider catching the ball closer to the plate, because he had a long way to go to apply the tag.)
"Twice now Luis has kinda bailed me out of situations," Burke said, "That relay throw by him and Sosa was huge."
In between those episodes, Burke was just about perfect. He retired eight in a row starting with the Burger punchout, and after a Langford double broke up the no-hit bid with one out in the fourth, Burke retired the next seven. The Statcast chart shows a relatively straightforward fastball-slider attack, but the curveball also carried its weight. He generated six called strikes, four of which put him into 0-1 counts, and in position to throw a quality start with relative efficiency.
Mahle, who came into the game with a 1.47 ERA, never quite looked settled over five arduous innings, and the White Sox stacked together quality plate appearances in the third to break through for three runs. Sosa and Josh Rojas opened the inning with singles to put runners on the corners, and while Chase Meidroth lined out to third, Mike Tauchman walked to load the bases, and then Miguel Vargas outlasted Mahle for an eight-pitch walk and the game's first run.
Andrew Benintendi followed with a sac fly to center in his first game back to make it 2-0, and then Robert's broken-bat flare to center touched grass for the all-important third run.
H"aving Beni back and Tauchman back kind of stretch out our lineup," Venable said. "We have guys who do a good job controlling the zone and grinding at-bats, and we saw that tonight in that inning. Guys that have been around, veteran guys who know how to control an at-bat, know how to execute a game plan. We saw that tonight. It just kind of puts guys in better spots throughout the order."
Robert then made more of his own luck in the sixth. After Burger's double narrowed the margin to two, Robert restored it with hustle. He hit an ordinary fly ball to right field, but after expressing initial disappointment, he put his head down and ran it out, which allowed him to be approaching second by the time Adolís García dropped the ball in right. What's more, although he expected to hold up at second, he was able to restart his momentum toward third when he saw García's throw bounding off the mark behind him, and he turned a two-base error into three to open the inning. Joshua Palacios then golfed a decent changeup into right field for an RBI single that produced the final score.
"It’s been absolutely sick just seeing what the guys are doing out there," Palacios said. "Tauchman having great at-bats, Chase doing what he does getting on base like he always does, seeing Luis out there even hustling on the ball to get to third to give me an opportunity to drive him in. It’s been sick and today we got to see what a healthy team looks like. So I’m excited."
The White Sox bullpen protected the lead without much drama. Cam Booser and Jordan Leasure each pitched 1-2-3 innings, with Booser benefiting from a fine catch by Tauchman against the side wall in right field to end the seventh, and Robert running down a deep drive by Marcus Semien in the eighth. Steven Wilson issued a one-out walk in the ninth, but avoided bringing the tying run to the plate as he nailed down the save.
Bullet points:
*Tauchman went 1-for-3 with a walk and the nice catch in right in his first MLB action since being tagged out between third and home attempting to score the game-tying run in Cleveland on April 9. A stolen-base attempt was nullified by a batter interference call on Vargas.
*Benintendi went 0-for-2 with the sac fly and a walk in his return to the lineup.
*Robert stole his 18th base to go along with his two hits and the outfield assist, so he's trying.
*The White Sox have five saves this season, all by a different reliever.
*The White Sox are now back ahead of 2024's pace, and have a chance to pad the lead since last year's team was just starting a 14-game losing streak at this point in the season.
