AL DIVISION SERIES: WHITE SOX VS GUARDIANS

October 9, 2026

Sean Burke

Progressive Field

Chicago White Sox

Workout Day Press Conference

Q. Sean, you said earlier that you dreamed more about the World Series than a playoff start, but now it's a pretty important playoff start. What's kind of this opportunity, especially with what's on the line for the group as a whole mean for you?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. Obviously it's an honor to be able to start this game and just go out there and do my thing for the guys. I think that everybody is going to be ready to go. Everybody is going to be at their best for tomorrow's game.

Q. You were in the bullpen late last night just kind of preparing for a situation. Just how has it been, one, what would that opportunity have been like and how did you kind of fold it into preparing for the start like normal?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. So we talked about it on Wednesday about potentially giving -- depending on the situation of the game, heading down there. Didn't end up going down there on Wednesday. But then last night, it was kind of a situation if we were up late in the game and we had used GT, that was going to be kind of my spot to go in late in the game, but when it got stretched out in the sixth inning, there was not really the opportunity to do that.

I think just taking care of my body, making sure I was ready to go for whatever game I was needed, and just making sure that I wasn't doing too much throughout the week. I didn't throw bullpen this week to make sure I was ready to go for that game. Now looking to tomorrow, it's normal prep day before, and you get ready to go.

Q. Sean, your team has done such a good job of handling the ups and downs of the season all year. How has the team handled the extreme playoff highs and lows? You leave Cleveland up 2-O. Look close to into clinching the ALCS and then get beat the last two. How have you progressed that so far?

SEAN BURKE: That's kind of baseball. You've followed us all year. You've seen the ebbs and flows of our season. I don't think we've ever had a super, super low or super, super high. I think that's kind of our team is staying even-keeled.

We've done a good job of bouncing back from games and done a good job turning the page when we need to, and this game tomorrow is no different than that.

Q. Does that help you? I think you guys never won more than five in a row and never lost more than four in a row? Does it help you when you are not a team where you know you can go grab one when everything is on the line?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. Exactly. I think too, you see how these guys play, and I don't think -- we talked about a lot since of being in the playoffs. We show up and play our brand of baseball. We're going to like our chances to win, and I don't think we've played our brand of baseball the last two games just in terms of kind of handling our own business and kind of beating ourselves. So all tomorrow is about just getting back to playing our game.

Q. Sean, I know you were one of those guys who was impacted by losing the COVID year back in college. Heard you were working on breaking balls in your backyard. How formative of a time was that for you?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. It was huge. Times like this, you making the playoffs, you kind of start to think back on the journey that you had or I had to get to this point and moments like that that nobody sees of me throwing into a net or throwing to my dad in my driveway or on my street working on stuff. Those are special moments for me.

Obviously having that developmental period, just kind of put the game aside and work on pure stuff and pitching and all that stuff is huge. And I think like I said, a time like this, you look back and kind of see the journey of how you got to this point, like those are some of the moments I'll never forget in my career.

Q. Absolutely. And where did your love of wearing Jordans start and how big is your collection now?

SEAN BURKE: In middle school, high school, I was always playing basketball. So I was always into basketball shoes. I always liked buying and selling shoes when I was younger. Then that was high school basketball.

I started doing that and I started wearing different shoes throughout those games. I went to Maryland, so I was with Under Armour for a little bit and using those cleats. And then I felt like I wanted to bring those back, and I think it's one of those things as a pitcher you can't really do too much to show your personality or dress yourself up a little bit. So I think doing that is kind of a way to express yourself a little too.

Funny story, when I got called up in 2024, I left my stuff in Charlotte and my stuff got robbed. So I lost pretty much my whole collection of stuff then. So I've been piece by piece kind of adding back to the collection.

Q. Oh, wow. Okay. Hold on. How did you realize your stuff got robbed?

SEAN BURKE: So this is a long story, so I basically had one of the clubbies back up my apartment for me. And a little miscommunication, I told him if he could pack it in my car for me before I got back on the last day. He took that I'm going to pack it in your car and leave it in the garage for a week. So then it got broken into there.

Q. All right. Sorry about that. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Tough pivot here, but knowing that you're going into an elimination game tomorrow, Sean, and you kind of have that empty the tank mentality, how do you take that, knowing that you have that in the tank, so to speak, is that something that you try not to think about like that you're going to empty the tank and give everything you have because you don't want it to affect your start or how does that work when you know that there's no tomorrow?

SEAN BURKE: I mean, I empty the tank every single time I'm out there. This is no different for me. Every single game I go out there, I'm giving 100 percent of everything I have, and I don't think tomorrow is any different.

I think that I'll just embrace this moment. I love moments like these. I love being able to pitch in the big game. And just the fact that the coaching staff and the team trust me to go out there and do my thing tomorrow just means the world to me.

Q. I asked Will this same question, but a lot of times veteran teams in these situations, elimination games, kind of have an even-keel personality going into it, but with you guys have that back against the wall mentality like you have had last four, five weeks or so, being a young club that's kind of never really been here before, what's the benefit of that?

SEAN BURKE: I think we're just going out and playing our game. I don't think there needs to be anything extra or different. We obviously have great veterans to kind of lean on in times like this to kind of settle everybody down and provide some insight, provide some experience of what these games are like.

But at the end of the day, it's baseball. And I like our team's chances in whatever game against whatever opponent we got.

Q. What stood out to you about that Game 2 outing and what can you take from that on into tomorrow night?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah. I think I did a pretty good job of commanding all my stuff in the zone. I think that's kind of the key with this team. You see the last couple games how they were able to piece together bigger innings when you're not as sharp with command, or you get behind guys, you walk guys, and then this team kind of thrives. They take advantage of that.

So first and foremost, that's my focus pretty much every game no matter the opponent is being able to command my stuff and filling up the zone early and trust my stuff in the zone. And from there, we'll have the game plan of how we want to pitch certain guys.

Yeah, I think definitely now that I've thrown against this team, whatever it is, three, four times this year, that we have some stuff that we've seen that works. We've got some stuff that we've seen didn't work as well. So just kind of going over the game plan again and then watch those outings and trying to kind of formulate a plan based off of that.

Q. Sometimes in the year, I think it got exacerbated a little bit in Game 2 with the weird warmup of getting in and coming in, but your stuff will be a little lower in the first inning and build up over the course of the game. Is that something you have to work to combat in this one?

Is that one where you're probably going to be so keyed up that, if anything, it's just going to be keeping yourself in the rails or is it just kind of the way you operate that you've kind of grown to accept?

SEAN BURKE: I mean, I think it's a little bit of kind of the way I operate. I think that just making sure -- I think as the season goes on, too -- I've always kind of been like that, too, where I feel like I kind of improve, my stuff ticks up a little bit as the game goes. But obviously want to get off to a good start.

So just doing everything I can I think at this point in the season, too, just trying to make sure my body is ready to go. This is the most I've thrown, so just making sure that I'm ready to go from pitch one. That's not something I really actively think about. But first inning comes, I'll be ready to go first pitch.

Q. Sean, I asked this of Will yesterday and a few of your teammates post game. How would you describe these 17 games you and the Guardians have played this year? It seems like three-quarters have come down to one or two runs. What has it been like for you as a competitor to be part of this rivalry this year?

SEAN BURKE: Yeah, it's been a blast. I think they're all dog fights, and that's kind of what you expect out of these two teams. Good pitching, good lineups. I think we match up. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. And you get two teams that have good leadership and scrappy teams and that's what you're going to get is close ballgames.

So I don't expect anything different tomorrow night. And fortunately our team has kind of been in those situations and we've played tight games. We've played tight games against them. We've played big games, tight games against other teams, and we've been here before as a group and we know how to get it done.