KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Chicago White Sox trailed two pitches into the bottom of the first inning Saturday against the Kansas City Royals.
They never recovered, falling 6-2 in front of 28,355 at Kauffman Stadium.
Starter Sean Burke allowed a home run on an 0-1 fastball to Royals leadoff batter Mike Yastrzemski. Burke gave up three runs (two earned) in 3 2/3 innings as the Sox lost for the 10th time in their last 12 games.
“I thought (the outing) was pretty bad,” Burke said. “The last two starts have been embarrassing how I’ve been throwing the ball. I’ve just got to figure it out and start piecing together some better outings again.”
At 44-79, the Sox are a season-worst 35 games under .500. They have dropped 13 straight at Kauffman.
Burke failed to get out of the fourth inning for the second consecutive outing.
Burke allowed two runs on five hits while throwing 88 pitches in 3 1/3 innings on Aug. 9 against the Cleveland Guardians at Rate Field. On Saturday, he threw 85 pitches in the sweltering heat — it was 94 degrees at the game’s start.
“A lot of deep counts, a lot of foul balls,” Burke said. “I feel like I’m not able to kind of finish guys as quickly as I would have liked to. I don’t know how many 3-2 counts there were tonight, but there were a lot of them. And the foul balls.
“Just trying to get quicker outs and continue to get ahead of guys. Doing everything I can to try to get more efficient innings.”
Burke threw 53 pitches through two innings. He hurt his own cause in the second.
White Sox starter Sean Burke delivers against the Royals in the first inning on Saturday, Aug. 16, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (Charlie Riedel/AP)
The Royals had runners on first and second with one out when Kyle Isbel hit a grounder back to the mound. Burke fielded the ball cleanly, but he threw wildly to second while trying to start a double play. A run scored on the error, giving the Royals a 2-0 lead.
“I just rushed the throw a little bit,” Burke said. “Had more time than I thought I had. Just overall, that aspect of it, the pitching in general, going to have to be a little bit cleaner with everything.”
Burke allowed a solo home run to John Rave, who entered after Vinnie Pasquantino exited with a heat-related illness, in the third inning.
“I wasn’t really upset with the pitch (to Yastrzemski in the first),” Burke said. “Just trying to get ahead of guys, and flood the zone as much as I can to guys early in the game. Try to get quick outs and get ahead of guys as soon as possible. A swing like that, he put a good swing on it.
“I’m more upset about the one to Rave, yanking a fastball down and in.”
Burke exited after allowing a single to Nick Loftin with two outs in the fourth.
“I thought there was some good stuff, it felt like they were really grinding out at-bats,” manager Will Venable said of Burke’s start. “A lot of foul balls, a lot of at-bats that took a lot of pitches. And we weren’t able to convert the double play and they just grinded him out.”
The Royals scored two runs in the fifth on a double by Maikel Garcia against reliever Tyler Alexander. They added another in the sixth with an RBI single by Loftin.
The Sox, meanwhile, didn’t get much going offensively until the eighth, when Andrew Benintendi drove in two with a double. The Sox finished with eight hits, six of them singles. They went 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position.
“I still think we’re having good at-bats, we’re just in between a little bit, fouling some balls off and it doesn’t look like what it looked like two weeks ago,” Venable said.
The Sox are looking for ways to regain the strides that led to a 10-4 start out of the All-Star break.
“We’ve just got to start playing better baseball again,” Burke said. “I don’t think it’s one glaring issue. We’ve all just got to be able to play a little bit better. Us as starting pitchers want to be able to put our team in a good position every time out there.
“I don’t feel like I’ve done that the last two weeks. So going into this next start, doing everything I can to make sure we’re in a good position late in the game to win.”
Originally Published: August 16, 2025 at 7:14 PM CDT