The Good and Bad of It

On Sunday, White Sox rookie righthander Sean Burke gave up one run over four innings, which is a good thing. But to do that Burke needed to throw 91 pitches, and that, my friends, is a very bad thing. I watched enough of the game to see that Burke had no idea where his pitches were going. How ironic that all the pitching gizmos teams use now for developing pitchers can’t help them with location. If I make a comment like that, you can pretty much guess what I’m going to say next—that young man needed a good talking-to. And the people to do it should’ve been his catcher, his pitching coach and, maybe, his manager. A pitcher has to get into the mindset that he’s going to throw strikes. Catcher Matt Thaiss needed to get Burke there, even if it meant letting Burke call his own game. That message needed to be repeated by pitching coach Ethan Katz. Manager New-Mickey Venable would’ve been a last resort. I will say this for Venable: He didn’t lose the game, and he didn’t burn his bullpen winning it. Venable actually had reliever Mike Vasil pitch three innings. If Venable makes more decisions like that, I may even give him his first name back.