The good news for the White Sox is that they’ve given themselves enough breathing room that it’s almost impossible for them not to make the playoffs at this point. Anyone in the fan base would have been thrilled to know the team would be in this spot with less than three weeks left in the regular season.
But that doesn’t mean Sox fans can get too comfortable, especially after Sean Burke had the shortest outing of his career in a 9-3 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. He lasted only 1 1/3 innings, let the first seven batters reach base, tied a career high with seven runs allowed, and five of the eight hits he gave up were doubles. The Pirates would go on to finish with a staggering 18 hits overall.
A game like this for Burke seemed like it was on the horizon despite having two extra days off beforehand. In his previous start against the Houston Astros, who now sit 1.5 games behind the Sox for the No. 2 seed in the AL playoffs, he threw 5 2/3 shutout innings. But over his three outings before that, two didn’t see him go longer than 4 1/3 innings, and two had him give up four runs and at least five hits.
Even though this is only his second full season, Burke has already blown past his career high for innings pitched. He might just be running out of gas, but that could be said about a lot of Sox pitchers who are also pushing the limit. The problem is that this is happening during the stretch run of a pennant race that the Sox weren’t supposed to be a part of, so everything is getting put under a microscope.
Not making this loss any easier to take is that the Cleveland Guardians cut their AL Central deficit to two games by defeating the Baltimore Orioles. While they can’t overtake or even tie the Sox before this weekend’s slate of games, a worst-case scenario in which they beat the Orioles again and the Sox get swept by the Pirates would mean they trail by only half a game.
Ironically, the Guardians might be the cure for what ails the Sox, who are 27-15 against the AL Central but 48-53 against everyone outside the division. It won’t be any easier this weekend when they travel to meet a St. Louis Cardinals team trying to keep its own playoff hopes alive.
The good news is that another day is off the calendar. The bad news is that there are too many days left on it. Gotta love pennant fever, right?
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