Sean Burke has given the White Sox exactly what they’ve needed at the top of the rotation, and then some.
After opening with 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball against the Yankees, Burke has now strung together seven straight outings that have made him the club’s most reliable starter: 44 2/3 innings, 32 hits, eight earned runs, seven walks, 57 strikeouts, four homers and a 1.61 ERA. The right-hander said the changes showing up in his work aren’t really changes at all so much as everything clicking into place.
“I’m not gonna do anybody a favor by throwing it when I feel like I don’t need to,” Burke said of his changeup, before moving on to his delivery. “It’s just matching my arm path to my shoulders and where it’s at.
I don’t think there’s anything intentional to try to raise [my release point] or anything. We’re just trying to match the plane of my shoulders and my hips.”
Davis Martin, meanwhile, took a different kind of satisfaction from Wednesday night’s win. He said there’s a special pride starting pitchers feel in surviving a rough first inning and still getting through six frames, and he believes his mechanics are getting back to their first-half shape.
The White Sox also got a huge boost from Jordan Hicks, who pushed his career-high scoreless appearances streak to 14 in dramatic fashion. In the 12th inning Wednesday, he worked around a single, a walk and the automatic runner to keep the game alive before Edgar Quero ended it with a walk-off single in the bottom half.
Hicks has been part of the White Sox’s turnaround story, and he didn’t hide his confidence in where the team stands.
“I’m excited,” Hicks said. “We’re in a good spot.
It’s the right group to make a push into the playoffs, win the division. Just got to keep showing up, playing good ball.
We’re going to get soaked every once in a while. It’s about how you respond to it, and hopefully we respond well.”
That attitude has carried into the clubhouse. Even with the White Sox only five games over .500, there wasn’t much sense of relief after the comeback. Sam Antonacci framed Wednesday’s win as the kind of game this team expects to handle.
“There's nothing really to turn around here,” said Sam Antonacci. “We've had such a successful season so far, just continue to keep stacking on wins. The biggest success of yesterday is that we ended up winning a game like that; a playoff-type game.”
On Friday, Chase Meidroth is set to be the lead man for the White Sox against left-hander Ryan Weathers, and the team’s hitting director made it clear the youngster brings the right edge for a matchup like this.
“Chase is a dog,” said hitting director Ryan Fuller. “He's coming here for war every single day.
He wants to be in the cage early. He wants to push the guys.
He knows that we're playing the Yankees, it's going to be a fight. We've got to do something today.
More than anything else, stature or the way he looks, he's six-foot-six, 250 [pounds] in his head. He is definitely a dog that we love having on our side.”
The weekend pitching matchups in Tampa, or St. Petersburg, are already lined up. Saturday brings Noah Schultz against Drew Rasmussen, and Sunday pairs Anthony Kay with Griffin Jax.
The White Sox and Yankees will be on CHSN, with radio coverage on ESPN 1000 AM.
The lineups are set as well, with the Yankees sending Trent Grishamn, Ben Rice, Jasson Domínguez, Paul Goldschmidt, Spencer Jones, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Anthony Volpe, Ryan McMahon and Austin Wells. The White Sox counter with Chase Meidroth, Munetaka Murakami, Miguel Vargas, Randal Grichuk, Colson Montgomery, Everson Pereira, Braden Montgomery, Luisangel Acuña and Edgar Quero, with Sean Burke on the mound against Ryan Weathers.
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