Pregame notes: Sean Burke makes it 62

Whenever Sean Burke makes his major league debut--he's available Tuesday night out of the bullpen but also is taking Nick Nastrini's next turn in the starting rotation--he'll extend the White Sox record of different players used this season to 62.

If only that were the one club record the Sox were threatening to break every night. Instead a new single-season high for losses, and this current franchise record of 13 consecutive home losses are also on the table. Burke is trying to take more of a long-term view of the White Sox.

"I want to take care of business this year and finish out the year strong," Burke said. "Going into 2025, we’ve got a lot of guys who are young, up and down this year. If we can get a group of core guys to show up and be the same guy every day, we can start to build something for the future. I’m doing my best to be a part of that."

Burke has been striking out the world (37.4 percent) over his last seven starts at Triple-A Charlotte, and is buzzing about how a new seam-shifted changeup is tying his four-pitch arsenal together. But the thing to watch is whether the arm side movement on the pitch gives him enough room to work in the zone, as walks and command--and being capped at 90 pitches after last year's shoulder troubles--have kept him shy of completing five innings in all but two of his previous seven starts.

Playing cards in the back of the Knights bus when his manager Pat Listach (who was on the other Charlotte bus) was trying to call him with the news on Sunday, Burke was initially told he was going to Chicago but it was uncertain if he would be activated. When Nastrini was optioned after throwing 3 1/3 scoreless yet choppy innings out of the bullpen Monday night, it cleared the way for Burke.

 "You have to have a little bit more feel for the fastball if you don’t want to be one-dimensional out there," Grady Sizemore said of Nastrini. "He’ll probably stay down there out of the bullpen for now, but he’ll still be in contention to start for us next year."

Since Burke's start to the season was delayed by his recovery from last year's shoulder injury, he's only at 71 2/3 innings for the year and was set to pitch in the Arizona Fall League in October. He sounds like he's OK with that being on the back burner for now.

"Yeah, my mind is here right now," Burke said. "We’ll deal with that once the season is over."

Is Brooks Baldwin playing again this season after aggravating a right wrist issue in Baltimore? Seems like things are leaning toward no, even if he's still taking ground balls and participating in team stretch.

"We’re trying to keep him active and moving around, even though it still hurts kind of when he hits," Sizemore said. "This late in the year, we don’t want to push him too hard. Want to make sure, even though the scans and X-rays look good, that he’s not swinging through pain and creating more problems."

Asked straight up whether Baldwin will play again this season, the answer wasn't a firm yes.

"I don’t think we’re going to rush it," Sizemore said. "With where we’re at, when he’s ready to come off we’ll see how he’s feeling, swing-wise. There’s no immediate urge to put someone back in there and risk a worse injury or to re-aggravate something like that. We’re going to go off how he’s feeling, slowly ramp up and at least get to the point where he’s taking some swings and having batting practice from that left side and not feeling pain. If he gets there earlier than later, yeah, we could activate him. But I don’t have a timetable for that."

Drew Thorpe has a big bandage on his right arm after undergoing surgery to address a bone spur in his pitching elbow. Thorpe said the procedure went as expected and that he will be shut down from throwing for 8-12 weeks, but that it shouldn't be a significant deviation from his offseason schedule.

"If I’d finished out the rest of the year, I’d probably take two weeks to a month off, so should line up perfectly," Thorpe said. "Especially the last couple weeks, I didn’t feel like myself. Now I kind of have an answer, get to next year and hopefully feeling better when I come back, and go from there.”

Bryan Ramos spoke Monday night about trying to keep his timing sharp while sidelined for five days without game action.

"Obviously we have the cage," Ramos said. "I do some work on the machine, try to see like as similar as I can to the game. That’s what I do. I do my routine, like I’m playing or not playing. Machine, BP and side, try to stay working because, like you say, if you don’t play every day, your timing kind of go off. But, try to do the best I can and put it on the field."

His first career homer Monday night seemed to earn Ramos another start, and maybe this starts a run of the 22-year-old producing and holding down the White Sox third base job for the next 10 years. But then that would just raise the question of what they're going to do with Miguel Vargas. But since Vargas is hitting .110/.226/.176 in a White Sox uniform while trying to reduce his hand load, the question might be raised more quietly.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Guardians

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