Zach Eflin pitched seven shutout innings and the Baltimore Orioles pieced together a sixth-inning scoring rally to defeat the visiting Chicago White Sox 2-1 on Friday.
Gunnar Henderson and Ryan Mountcastle each had two hits for the Orioles in the opener of a three-game series between the teams with the worst records in the American League.
Eflin (4-2) allowed four hits and a walk while striking out six. Bryan Baker pitched a scoreless eighth and Felix Bautista survived the ninth for his ninth save. Bautista allowed a run and the White Sox had two runners on base when Bautista struck out Joshua Palacios to end the game.
Sean Burke (3-6) took the loss as he gave up two runs in six innings on five hits and one walk. Burke, who entered five batters into the game, recorded six strikeouts.
Until Mike Tauchman’s one-out double in the ninth, all of Chicago’s hits were singles — and Lenyn Sosa had two of them. The White Sox had trouble on the basepaths after getting their first two runners on in the sixth. When Edgar Quero wandered too far off second on Josh Rojas’ prospective bunt, Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman threw behind him to start a rundown that retired Quero.
Andrew Benintendi doubled in Tauchman with two outs in the ninth for Chicago’s run.
The Orioles, who’ve won four of their last six games, got going in the sixth when Rutschman singled and Gunnar Henderson doubled to put runners in scoring position with no outs. Mountcastle reached on an infield single without the runners advancing. After Rutschman was thrown out at the plate on Ryan O’Hearn’s fielder’s choice, Ramon Urias provided a sacrifice fly for the game’s first run. The second run came on a double steal as Mountcastle raced home from third base. It was Baltimore’s first steal of home since August 2021.
The White Sox went with Jared Shuster in the so-called opener role, working one inning plus one batter before Burke took over.
Burke made it through four innings unscathed until the Orioles got the two runs in the sixth.
First pitch was moved up more than 2 1/2 hours to a late-afternoon start due toi weather-related concerns in the evening.
–Field Level Media
