Zach Eflin shines, Orioles hold off late White Sox rally

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 both had two hits for the Orioles in the opener of a three-game series between teams with the two 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 Joshua Palacios struck out to end the game.

Sean Burke (3-6) took the loss, allowing two runs in six innings on five hits, one walk and 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 base paths as Baltimore catcher Adley Rutschman threw out Edgar Quero on a stolen base attempt and also was credited with a pick-off of 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, and then Rutschman was thrown out at the plate on Ryan O'Hearn's fielder's choice grounder.

Ramon Urias provided a sacrifice fly for the game's first run. The second run came on a double steal, with Mountcastle scoring 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 the first inning from the mound before Burke took over.

Burke made through four innings unscathed until the Orioles got the two runs in the sixth.

The game was moved up more than 2 1/2 hours to a late-afternoon start because of weather-related concerns in the evening.

--Field Level Media