AL DIVISION SERIES: WHITE SOX VS GUARDIANS

October 4, 2026

Sean Burke

Progressive Field

Chicago White Sox

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Sean, what do you know about your role for tomorrow? Do you expect to be starting?

SEAN BURKE: I think Anthony Kay is going to open. And from there, we're just going to kind of feel out the game, and whenever my name gets called to pitch, I'll be ready to go.

Q. Is it at all kind of a momentum thing in the way that you've seen everybody else kind of take the ball here over the whole playoff run? It's been kind of like taking the baton?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. 100 percent. I think just seeing the efforts and everybody kind of doing their own individual role just makes you want to take the ball and just do anything you can to kind of help the team just put up zeros, and like you said, passing that baton to the next guy. And the way we're doing this is really just like a team effort from the pitching side.

Q. What were some of your takeaways from your first playoff to start against the Astros?

SEAN BURKE: I had a lot of fun. Obviously it's nice to get that four-nothing cushion early.

I think overall I felt like I threw the ball well. It's kind of one of the best, just in terms of how my stuff felt and delivery and everything, and just the crispness of kind of how all the pitches felt, it was good. I think just threw mistakes and hit three homers on it. That's kind of playoff baseball. Those mistakes get punished a little bit more.

But overall, I felt good. I was throwing strikes, getting ahead of guys. And obviously we'd like those couple pitches back that kind of hung in the zone there. But at the end of the day, I didn't feel like they were taking pitches that I really thought were executed and doing damage on them.

So that's just on me to kind of make some better pitches there, and that's something to learn from. I'm happy I got that first one under my belt just so I know kind of the expectation going forward. You see the environment. You see the intensity of the game. And from there, it's easy to go out and do your thing again.

Q. What can you take away from that aspect of it?

SEAN BURKE: It's a lot of fun. This is why you play the game. This is why you grind all season to get to those moments. Yeah, I think everybody on our teams loves playing in these big moments, loves playing in these environments.

Q. Probably as you dreamed as a kid, you dreamed about being of a playoff start. That's not really the structure that you guys are taking this on. It's both from you and just the starting staff in general, is there kind of a setting your ego aside necessary to get used to the structure that you guys are using?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. I think I dream of the World Series more than I dream of a playoff start. So whatever is going to get us the World Series, we're all on board with that.

Q. You're obviously familiar with Cleveland being in the division. What kind of challenges does their lineup bring?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. They put together tough at-bats. A lot of guys that kind of have some different, I guess, like approaches, different personalities of a hitter, I guess, for lack of a better word.

You got some power guys in there, some guys that were not good at-bats, some guys who really good bat the ball. So just a variety of hitters in that lineup. And I think they play offense as a team. They do a good job taking advantage of mistakes. They do a good job of taking walks. They do a good job on the bases.

It's the stuff like that that are maybe not the sexy things, but they do it really well and that's how they win games. Just making sure that when their better hitters come up, you're taking care of business and then just staying mentally locked in and focused for those guys because those guys all the way down the lineup can get on base, do damage and run, and they kind of set the table for the rest. I think just being really diligent going one through nine and making good pitches to everybody.

Q. Something Will said was like it's an error, like you can't give up free bases to them whether it's walks or errors or stolen bases.

What does that kind of impress upon you? Is it just like throw it down the middle, but in terms of feeling like you have to be in the zone and trust your stuff against them?

SEAN BURKE: I think just getting ahead early. I think that's the biggest thing, and I've talked about that a lot this year, about that being my main focus and more times than not, if I'm ahead of guys early, if I'm getting the two strikes before I am getting the two balls, then I'm going to take my chances with how the game is going to go.

I think this is kind of the same thing. They do a good job in terms of play discipline, and you've seen their offense take a lot of walks, and I think just avoiding that and trusting my stuff and making them lineup and try to beat me.

Q. What can say about what Grant was able to do for you guys yesterday?

SEAN BURKE: Grant is unbelievable. I think just to see him kind of -- he starts -- he's kind of a one inning guy last year and to this year. And for him to take on more and more innings and more of a role and taking that game, whatever it was, sixth inning or fifth inning, whatever it was and just going and finishing that, that's super cool to see.

You guys know like he's been a guy that I kind of rehabbed with when he was going through Tommy John. I was kind of going through my shoulder problem. So I think it's really cool for me to see him develop and him come back from whenever that was in 2023 to get to where he is now and just to see the whole journey from him and how much better he's got and how diligent he is with his on work is really cool.

Q. Kyle Teel has been on a pretty good run with the ABS challenges behind the plate. I would imagine you guys have kind of talked about it.

In what way does that help your mindset when you're out there on the mound? How does it feel to know that he's kind of on this role?

SEAN BURKE: I've jokingly called him the sniper, the ABS sniper. But it's cool. I think there's times you try not to let it affect you as a pitcher, but I guess not as much so this year with the challenges as years past.

But like you get in situations where you're out of challenges and you make a good pitch that you feel like was there to a good hitter, and they don't get the call and it's kind of like a mental like, damn, I really wanted that pitch.

If you let that kind of sit in your head, linger in your head a little too long, it'll kind of take you into the next pitch. So I think him being back there, you know if it's there, if it's close, he's going to get it for you. And that's you just knowing that you have someone back there that's not afraid to do it and that's really good at it.

Q. When it comes to the mentality, we've heard so much about you, your thought process going into games. Obviously into Game 2 having the opportunity to put Cleveland on the brink of elimination, what goes through your mind when that comes to mind?

SEAN BURKE: It's awesome. I think that's special. I think these games do, obviously they mean a lot in general, but just to have the opportunity to go out there and be the person that gets the ball in a game like this where we can go up a 2-0 lead and head back home to our fans is going to be cool.

Q. Just thinking about your mindset, obviously pitch-wise and attacking on the corners, Tristan Peters, I just talked to him, talk about how efficient you can be. When it comes to being in a raucous environment, how do you lock in in those kinds of mindsets?

SEAN BURKE: I think it's just focusing on your job and your execution. I think you can get -- guys can get caught up in the environment, but that's all stuff that doesn't matter.

At the end of the day, it's you and the catcher, you, the catcher and the hitter. I think the message is just kind of just focus on what you're doing, do your job. And I've said before, I said last series, we show up and we play our game. We play our brand of baseball.

We all like our chances in whatever game against whoever we're playing. So just staying focused on the task at hand and just playing our game. That's kind of the mindset going into it.