HOUSTON — Sean Burke knew he wouldn’t like the result the instant Christian Walker made contact with a slider over the heart of the plate.
Walker launched the 1-0 pitch well over the left-field wall for a two-run home run in the first inning. It traveled 412 feet.
It was a tough outing for the Chicago White Sox right-hander in a 10-2 loss to the Houston Astros in front of 28,519 on Wednesday at Daikin Park.
Burke allowed seven runs on eight hits — both career highs — with four strikeouts and one walk in 3 2/3 innings.
“My stuff felt really good,” Burke said. “Probably the best physically I’ve felt in a little bit. Just kind of one of those nights where you get hit around a little bit.
“They hit some pitches that I made mistakes on and they hit some pitches that I thought I made some decent pitches on. It’s kind of one of those games where they saw it pretty well, put some good swings on the ball and it was kind of one of those nights.”
Walker was in the center of the damage. The two-run home run came as part of a three-run first inning for the Astros. Walker knocked in two more runs with a two-out double in the third.
Burke was one out away from getting out of the fourth. But he surrendered an RBI double to Jeremy Peña, who then scored on a double by Isaac Paredes to put the Sox in a 7-0 hole. That was Burke’s final batter in the 73-pitch outing.
“There were strikes but maybe not the command that you need for this lineup and I think just usage wise, it just seemed like it was a lot of spin,” manager Will Venable said. “Didn’t really establish the fastball. I just thought they were sitting on spin and hit spin. We were just a little late to adjust.”
Burke entered Wednesday having allowed just five runs in his last three outings, a span of 19 innings (a 2.37 ERA). But the Astros got to him early and didn’t let up.
“I think there were some points in the game where I got a little bit too soft, just following a pattern of a lot of sliders and curveballs,” Burke said. “It’s a good fastball-hitting team so I didn’t want to just hand-feed them a ton of fastballs like I do with some other lineups. Definitely feel like I could have used the fastball a little bit more, a little bit differently, just to get them off the breaking stuff and that would be a little bit more effective.
“You’d like the games that you feel well physically to be your best game results-wise, but that’s not always how it goes. It’s using the opportunity of feeling good to just kind of get back to work on everything.”
Owen White, making his Sox debut, allowed three runs on seven hits with five strikeouts and two walks in 4 1/3 relief innings.
“The overall line doesn’t look great but I thought he pitched great,” Venable said. “The first run (allowed in the fifth), the soft contact there (a bloop single by Walker that put runners on first and third) that got him in trouble and then whether he ran out of gas (in the two-run eighth) or whatever it might have been in the last inning was tough. The guy hasn’t pitched in a little while even though he was built up.
“That kind of comes with that role. But I thought he did an outstanding job. His stuff looked good. Really happy with his performance.”
Astros starter Ryan Gusto limited the Sox to two runs on seven hits with seven strikeouts and one walk in six innings. Josh Rojas had two hits and scored once, while Mike Tauchman and Miguel Vargas each had one RBI in the loss.
“He pounded the zone,” Venable said of Gusto. “We had one walk today, which we’ve been talking about and we’ve seen our guys control the zone really well. (Gusto) had had trouble throwing strikes to lefties. He didn’t have trouble tonight doing that. He did a great job.
“Hats off to him for attacking the zone and keeping us on our heels. We couldn’t get anything going.”
