Sean Burke played basketball and baseball in high school, but get him talking about his beloved New England Patriots, or his iPhone video of Caleb Williams' overtime-forcing touchdown pass in the Bears' Divisional round playoff loss to the Rams, and his love for football becomes pretty apparent.
So as the 26-year-old discussed the White Sox's new method of presenting advanced scouting information to their pitchers this season, full of graphs and charts, but also personalized to the individual, there was a term that clicked to him as the best description.
"They're trying to create different ways of how I'm starting guys versus how I'm getting guys out," Burke said. "It's creating a -- I don't even know what to call it -- a toolbox of ways to get guys out. Maybe a road map. You're starting at Point A, and Point B is a strikeout and there's eight different roads to get there."
Like a route tree?
"Yeah, a route tree," Burke said. "You get the information on this guy and it's 'OK, roads 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 are good ways to go against him,' and it's fine-tuning each route to get there."
Burke takes a lot of pride in his knuckle curve. He developed it while Maryland baseball was shut down for COVID in 2020, repping it in his backyard until he found a distinct grip with his top two fingers very spread out and very spiked. It's to the point where pitching coach Zach Bove reached out to the @MLBPitchClass X account on Burke's behalf so that the pitch would be correctly classified as a knuckle curve, and not just a regular one.
Yet he entered the season determined to break out of the previous year's cycle of long at-bats, alternating between four-seamers and curves, needing to land a perfect one end a showdown with a hitter who had grown attuned to how Burke wants to attack.
"I would get in situations where my pitch count gets jacked up because I'm trying to get guys out the same way," said Burke, who averaged less than five innings per appearance last year. "And guys able to foul that off, or guys are starting to catch on that, or see that. Even if I'm eventually getting them out, I'm working way too hard."
So now Burke's hot start of a 2.72 ERA through 39 2/3 innings over his first seven outings is happening in unrecognizable fashion. He's missing fewer bats than ever (20.5 percent strikeout rate, 82.7 percent contact rate), and getting fewer whiffs on his signature curve than last year (18.6 percent), but instead is getting deeper into games by filling up the zone with six different pitches.
He's utilizing the full route tree, so to speak. And the absence of extra baserunners (5.1 percent walk rate), and the increase in hitters swinging at pitches Burke would like them to (up from 26.7 percent to a 32.3 percent chase rate this year), is proving to be worth the decline in whiffs (3.37 xERA, 3.19 FIP).
"He just doesn't have to lean on the four-seam all the time," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "There's definitely been some arsenal usage adjustments. But also the mindset, mentality piece of, like, ‘Dude, you're really good. We need to attack the zone from pitch No. 1.’ You've saw that where he had a couple of 10‑pitch innings [against the Nationals]. Just challenge guys, right? Understand what pitch is going to play to this guy and let's go do that, don't try to be so fine, don't try to work to the corners. And that's going to help him."
Pumping up Burke's confidence to attack the zone comes alongside more of an egoless view of his signature pitches. The mid-90s velocity and above-average ride (19 IVB) on Burke's four-seamer made it a dominant pitch in college, and during his healthiest stretches in the minors, and in his best starts in the majors, but his addition of a cutter has been built around the presumption that he's not immune from leaguewide trends.
"You look around the league and you see a lot of starting pitchers going to that three-fastball mix and having success with it," said Burke, who had already added a sinker in 2025. "At times last year, my slider would get a little verty. I was throwing a different cutter grip to start and it was good but it was a little bit inconsistent, and basically took the slider grip I was throwing last year and just backed [my hand position] up a little bit so I was getting more baseball. My thought process was if I'm having trouble with killing vert on the slider, I can use that same grip for the cutter and just throw it harder and the shape's been good on it."
It can be hard to imagine Burke's best season coming alongside a below-average strikeout rate, but he also doesn't think his best four-seamer has showed up yet, and his success represents what he can still do without it. He was hoping in spring to more regularly tilt toward 97 mph through games, but instead is averaging a career-low 94.2 mph so far this season and often takes a bit to work up there, as his first fastball last Saturday glided in at 91 mph. Burke thinks there's a mechanical solution to the velocity he's pursuing, after some early season physical discomfort he had to work through.
"I had a little neck thing at the end of spring training and the first start of the year that I think was just because I was crunching my body so far back and getting stuck there," Burke said. "I was getting a little bit too counter-rotational in my upper body, and that was causing me to bring everything and getting stuck a little bit back; [mimes his upper body moving in line with his arm, rather than separating] I was here, then swinging back open.
"They told me that my shoulders are going to stay closed throughout my delivery and think more in terms of having your arm be on plane with the plate, and you're going to get the counter rotation you want."
If Burke explaining how he's been undermining the hip-shoulder separation in his delivery by rotating his torso too much is hard to parse, then Bove has a more succinct summary.
"We continue to work on the delivery stuff," Bove said. "We feel confident that the velo is going to continue to trend up, and we feel like that's going to be in a good spot.”
