The last time we'd seen Jake Burger in a White Sox uniform in game action against another team, he didn't make it down the first base line. He instead hit the ground, 25 feet or so in front of the bag, after suffering the first of two ruptured Achilles.
The lengthy rehab conspired with the COVID-19 pandemic to keep him out of standard professional competition for three years, and while he was able to climb out of dark places, lose scores of pounds, and get back into collegiate ball in order to demand a spot at the alternate training site in Schaumburg, we still hadn't yet seen him in a standard professional baseball context.
Sunday's Cactus League opener finally provided that setting, with Burger playing third base for the game's entire six innings. In his first at-bat, he hit a lazy fly down the right field line. I didn't track the flight of the ball. Instead, I watched Burger run toward first base and round the bag. I'm pleased to report that it was completely mundane.
Burger ended up going 0-for-3 with a flyout to deepish center and a strikeout in his other two trips to the plate, but the line score didn't matter, and it's not going to matter for quite some time. That he's back playing baseball without issue is the big thing, and he sounds quite pleased in that regard.
“It was a special moment today,” said Burger during a postgame Zoom. “This is just another milestone in the comeback. It feels great to be out there with the guys and just playing baseball again. It was one of those things where it kind of told me that I belonged. Those injuries are well behind me and I’m back to playing baseball.”
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Kade McClure also had a leg injury his past, a knee that he had surgically repaired in the middle of the 2018 season. He made a smooth recovery, rebounding to throw 122 innings with a 3.25 ERA across Kannapolis and Winston-Salem in 2019, but the strikeout and home run rates left a lot to be desired.
During prospect week, we'd heard that McClure found some extra velocity after ironing out his mechanics, which propelled him into the middle third of some top prospect lists. The cancellation of the minor league season kept him a secret, and to some extent he still is. Camelback Ranch is not equipped with pitch tracking equipment, so we didn't get to see his improved velocity register on radar guns.
We did, however, get to see a couple of impressive breaking balls for swinging strikes by two credible MLB hitters. Here's Keston Hiura striking out...
... and here's Daniel Vogelbach being way out in front.
McClure did lose Travis Shaw to a walk after getting ahead 0-2, so he could've theoretically done better during his scoreless inning of work. But while the Brewers took a number of convincing swings during the 7-2 win, none of them occurred during McClure's inning. It may be first-game-of-spring timing, but if McClure stands 6'7" with more power on his pitches, it's possible uncomfortable in-between hacks will be a frequent sighting.
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Yoán Moncada's line also suggests an unremarkable afternoon, as he went 0-for-3 with two groundouts and a flyout. The first groundout was a fielder's choice, which gave him the opportunity to show people that his battery had fully recharged.
Presenting: A steal of second.
It's not necessarily big news that Moncada stole second on Omar Narváez, because lots of people can run on Narváez. But Moncada didn't run at all period, with zero stolen base attempts after 18 in 2018, and 13 in 2019. It was one of a few ways the aftereffects of COVID-19 manifested themselves in his stats. Exit velocity is the other main number to watch, but while none of his contact lit up Statcast, that requires some cooperation from the pitcher he's facing. A better sprint speed only requires feeling good, and this might be his way of telling us.
(Photo by Ron Vesely/Chicago White Sox)
