Three takeaways as White Sox take road series from Blue Jays

TORONTO — Sean Burke allowed two hits in 6 2/3 scoreless innings on Sunday, leading the White Sox to a 3-0 victory against the Toronto Blue Jays in front of a sellout crowd of 41,288 at Rogers Centre.

Burke and relievers Bryan Hudson and Grant Taylor combined for the four-hit shutout.

Colson Montgomery paced the offense with two hits, including a solo home run, as the Sox won two of three in the series.

With the victory, the Sox (52-46) are back alone in first place in the American League Central. They have a one-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians (52-48), who lost 7-1 to the Pittsburgh Pirates on Sunday.

Here are three takeaways from Sunday’s game.

1. Tips from Davis Martin paid off for Burke.

Burke retired the first 10 batters. That included a nice defensive play by Randal Grichuk, who made a leaping catch at the left-field wall for the first out of the fourth inning.

The next hitter, Nathan Lukes, reached on an infield single by just beating a throw to first by Sox third baseman Miguel Vargas.

Burke only allowed one more hit, a single with two outs in the seventh to Daulton Varsho.

The right-hander struck out five and walked one in the 98-pitch outing.

“He was awesome,” manager Will Venable said. “We talk about the fastball — he was in the zone with the fastball, opened up some stuff for him. He was ahead in the count all day.”

Burke said conversations with Davis Martin were helpful. Martin allowed one run on four hits over 5 1/3 innings in a 1-0 loss on Saturday. The two discussed what worked for Martin and what could aid Burke.

“I don’t think, just from my pure stuff perspective, my stuff was as good as it has been the past couple of starts,” Burke said. “But I thought the sequencing was really good, the command of my stuff was really good. (Catcher Drew Romo) did an unbelievable job calling the game.

“We had a good game plan coming in, talking to Davis about how he went through the lineup yesterday and being able to bounce ideas off him was good, too.”

2. The hitters made just enough adjustments.

Montgomery thought the Sox made proper adjustments at the plate throughout Sunday’s game.

He struck out in his first at-bat against Trey Yesavage, who fanned six of the first eight batters. Montgomery collected the team’s first hit in the fourth inning, a one-out single that advanced Vargas from first to third. Vargas scored on a sacrifice fly to center by Andrew Benintendi, giving the Sox a 1-0 lead.

Montgomery connected for his 24th home run of the season in the sixth, extending the Sox’s lead to 2-0.

“My first at-bat, I didn’t really look too much into it,” Montgomery said. “I pretty much saw everything he had. He threw me every pitch, so, I took that as a positive. Being able to see every pitch is huge in that at-bat, even though I like swinging early. Once I saw him once, I felt like I saw the stuff pretty good, and then it led into the second at-bat. He threw me the splitter once and I hit that one (for the single). So I felt like I could cover pretty much every pitch.

“And going into that at-bat (which resulted in the home run), he dotted two fastballs in the inside corner and I kind of just stuck with my plan and he ended up leaving (a splitter) over the plate.”

Benintendi followed with a double and scored on a single by Braden Montgomery for the game’s final run. Braden Montgomery had two singles in the win.

“That’s another one of those arms that a lot of us young guys haven’t really faced or seen,” Colson Montgomery said. “Sometimes it just takes one or two at-bats to kind of get adjusted to it. And I felt like we got better throughout the game.”

3. The Sox returned from the All-Star break with a strong showing.

Venable commended how the Sox found different ways to capture the series.

“Obviously the first game here, with the offense (during a 12-4 victory on Friday),” Venable said. “And then today it was all about the pitching for us.

“Really nice to come out of the gates with a series win and doing it in different ways.”

The Sox didn’t skip a beat in their return from the All-Star break.

“Coming up here is no easy task,” Burke said. “That’s a good team. To start off with a series win on the road is huge.”