Rookie right-hander Sean Burke pitched six scoreless innings in his first Opening Day start and Austin Slater, Andrew Benintendi and Lenyn Sosa homered as the host Chicago White Sox routed the Los Angeles Angels 8-1 on Thursday.
Chicago, which lost a major league record 121 games last season, treated the Guaranteed Rate Field crowd to a crisp effort. The White Sox outhit the Angels 9-5 while Burke outpitched Los Angeles lefty Yusei Kikuchi.
Burke (1-0) appeared in four games in September and became the seventh pitcher since 1929 to make an Opening Day start with fewer than 20 career innings pitched. He retired the final 14 Angels he faced while giving up three hits and three walks and hitting one batter.
Taylor Ward led off the game with a double. Los Angeles later had two men in scoring position with one out before Burke escaped the jam by retiring Jorge Soler on a swinging strikeout and getting Tim Anderson looking. After throwing 24 pitches in the first inning, Burke needed no more than 11 pitches to complete any of the rest of his innings.
In his first at-bat with the White Sox, Slater smacked a home run to left field leading off the second inning. In a matchup of offseason acquisitions, he took Kikuchi deep on a 2-1 pitch.
Chicago surged ahead 3-0 with two outs in the inning as Miguel Vargas blooped a hustling, two-run double to short left field.
Kikuchi (0-1) regrouped to set down the last 13 White Sox he faced. He scattered three runs and five hits with five strikeouts over six innings.
The Angels loaded the bases with two outs in the eighth, but Mike Clevinger fanned Soler to end the threat.
Angels righty Ryan Johnson, a 2024 draft pick who didn’t throw a pitch in the minors last season, worked a 1-2-3 seventh in his major league debut. He encountered trouble in the eighth, however, surrendering a three-run shot to Benintendi and a two-run blast to Sosa.
Los Angeles avoided the shutout in the ninth on Logan O’Hoppe’s two-out, two-strike solo shot against Cam Booser.
O’Hoppe and Vargas had two hits apiece.
Angels right fielder Mike Trout was hit on the hand by a pitch in his first plate appearance but remained in the game, going 0-for-2 with a walk.
-Field Level Media
