Twins Tag White Sox Starter Sean Burke in 6-1 Win After Rain Delay

CHICAGO – After White Sox starter Sean Burke impressed on Opening Day with six shutout innings, the Minnesota Twins figured him out during Wednesday’s 6-1 win at Rate Field.

But first, they’d have to wait through a rain delay of three hours and 20 minutes. Burke said he felt good going into the game after trying to stay loose and mentally focused during the delay. Brooks Baldwin was ready when go-time came, and he also mixed in some card games and ping pong as storms rolled through the south side.

“We did everything we could to get them updates as we got going into the day,” White Sox manager Will Venable said. “And these guys did a great job of staying locked in and being ready to go and they were prepared to play.”

The Twins hit Burke hard a few times in the first inning. Carlos Correa drove a slider on the outside corner with an exit velocity of 104 miles per hour, but it was caught on the warning track. Another Burke slider caught too much of the plate, and the White Sox outfielders barely moved as it left Byron Buxton’s bat at 111.7 miles per hour and flew 446 feet over the left center field fence, giving the Twins an early 1-0 lead.

In the third inning, a 108.4 mile-per-hour line drive from Twins right fielder Matt Wallner hit the back of Burke’s right knee, but first baseman Nick Maton collected the ricochet and stepped on first for an out. Venable and White Sox medical staff checked on Burke, who grimaced and walked back to the mound with a slight limp. After a few practice pitches, Burke remained in the game. Venable does not expect it to require imaging.

“I think he’s going to be pretty sore,” Venable said. “But we were in constant communication with him. He battled through it and did a good job.”

“Good. I don’t think it’s anything too serious,” Burke said. “Probably just be sore for a couple of days. Not worried about it too much.”

He ran into more trouble in the fourth, allowing a single to Ty France and hitting Willi Castro by pitch. After leaving a slider up in the zone to Buxton in the first, Burke hung another slider to Harrison Bader, who launched it 355 feet into the left field bullpen. That gave the Twins a 4-0 lead and was his second home run in as many days.

Burke caught too much of the plate with those two sliders, which he wanted to throw in the lower left quadrant for a strike

“It was just the command of it was not the greatest,” Burke said. “The two they hit were just middle middle sliders that get hit pretty often when you throw them in those spots. Going back to half way through last year, my biggest thing was I want to be able to beat guys in zone. I don’t want to beat myself. I don’t want to put guys on base. So I think just kind of getting back to being a little bit finer with some of those pitches and not just throwing them over the heart of the plate.

Burke’s day was done after a Buxton line drive fell just short of a diving Travis Jankowski in center field, scoring Correa. Cam Booser replaced Burke and gave up an RBI double to Ty France, which extended Minnesota’s lead to 6-0 in the fifth. After pitching six scoreless innings on Opening Day, the final line of Burke’s second start read 4.1 innings, seven hits, six earned runs, zero walks and a strikeout.

“Just a couple of pitches got away from him,” Venable said. “He commanded the fastball well. I thought he did good job with the curve ball. Just a couple of pitches he wasn’t able to execute.”

Opposing starter Pablo Lopez retired 14 of the first 15 batters, a Matt Thaiss single being the outlier. He got some help from his defense as Correa made an improbable over-the-shoulder catch, ranging from shortstop to shallow left field. The White Sox threatened in the fifth as Jankowski and Michael A. Taylor reached on a single and a walk, respectively, but Jacob Amaya struck out looking to end the inning.

“Just really crisp,” Venable said of Lopez. “Fastball was really good. We know he's got a good changeup and the slider for the righties. Just a really good fastball tonight.”

After struggling to get a read on Lopez for most of the day, Brooks Baldwin put the White Sox on the board with a solo home run in the seventh. He timed up a changeup over the heart of the plate and slugged it 401 feet for his first home run of the year.

"First at-bat I was right there on the fastballs the whole time, and the second at-bat he threw me a good changeup first pitch and I flew out to left,” Baldwin said. “So going up there for the third at-bat, he's a guy that likes to get in the strike zone really early, so I was kind of sitting on a changeup there to start. So got one elevated over the heart of the plate, put a good swing on it."

The 24-year-old is now 5-for-14 on the season, good for a .357 batting average and the second most hits on the team. Before Wednesday's game, Venable said he’s been happy with Baldwin early on and that it’s in his DNA to be aggressive, which he doesn’t want to take away. But there’s a fine line between being too aggressive and controlling the zone as a successful big-league hitter.

“I like to be on-go from pitch one and just so I don't miss that first pitch if it's something I like to hit,” Baldwin said. “I can be over aggressive at times, but I've been working on trying to get better pitches to hit early in the count. So I think it's been working pretty good so far."

Lopez was finished after seven innings, allowing just four hits and one earned run while walking a batter and striking out five. He got ahead in counts with his fastball and kept the White Sox off balance with a variety of pitches, striking out batters with his changeup, fastball and curveball.

Cam Booser, Mike Clevinger and Mike Vasil tossed scoreless innings out of the White Sox bullpen, but the lineup couldn’t string together enough hits to score on Twins relievers Jhoan Duran and Danny Coulombe in the final two frames.

The White Sox have Thursday off before a weekend series in Detroit, beginning at 1:10 p.m. ET Friday at Comerica Park. After a 2-4 homestand to begin the season, Burke had a few positive takeaways.

“I think we have been playing hard,” Burke said. “I think that the effort everyone has been given has been good. The pitching has been great, the defense has been great. Guys have been hitting a lot. Today we ran into a good pitcher on their end but in general, everyone has been swinging the bat well and having good at-bats even when we are making outs. I think the first two series are encouraging.”