BALTIMORE -- Like refueling a fighter jet in flight, Chris Beck hooked up with the Chicago White Sox on Thursday for the briefest of moments before he was off again.
The 24-year old made his major league debut in a 6-2 loss during Game 2 of Thursday's doubleheader at Baltimore. When his six innings were over, he was back on his way to Triple-A Charlotte.
He might have walked four and taken the loss while giving up five runs (four earned) on 10 hits, but he still was able to show enough to earn another chance somewhere in the near future.
"He managed himself really good," catcher Geovany Soto said. "He was a big leaguer. He looked like a big leaguer."
The further Beck got from a shaky first inning, the better he seemed to get. His first big league pitch went for a triple to Manny Machado and he gave up two runs in that opening frame, but he rebounded with an aggressive approach at times.
"The first couple of pitches, I just had to tell myself to throw strikes, keep the ball down in the zone," Beck said. "I did that for a couple of innings but other than that everything was a little shaky. Command hasn't been as sharp as it has been in the past. I just put my head down, tried to battle through and give the team a chance to win."
Better defense and the chance to take back a couple of pitches could have delivered a much better result, but Beck gave the White Sox enough positives moving forward.
"Oh, I'm sure he was nervous," manager Robin Ventura said. "Any guy that comes in there is nervous, but he's throwing strikes, that's the biggest thing. His presence and command stuff was great. Sometimes you get a little worried about a guy getting in there and not throwing strikes, but for him coming in there first time in there, he did fine."
The Georgia native found about his first start on short notice, but his wife and high school baseball coach were able to get to Baltimore on time. The rest of his family and friends could be looking at his next major league start before the season ends.
Maybe in that next outing he will look more like the pitcher at the end of the outing than the one at the beginning.
"That's part of the game," Beck said. "You're going to have games like that, you're going to have games where you throw seven [shutout innings] on 90 pitches and you're going to have games where you get beat in for three innings and now you're out of the game. It's all part of it, part of the process. It's something to build on, something to work on and something I guess, to get out of the way early."
The White Sox's defense had three separate chances to save runs for Beck but couldn't deliver. Conor Gillaspie couldn't corral a ball hit down the line that allowed a run to score. Soto couldn't catch a throw from the outfield in the third inning resulting in a run. And Emilio Bonifacio couldn't snag a hard liner that went off his glove in the sixth.
"We had some chances there to get him out of some stuff and we didn't and you move on to Houston," Ventura said. "It was a long day, a long day to get guys in there and play some positions but we could have played better in the second game."
It was just more evidence how Beck's day could have gone better, but why it wasn't a disaster by any means.
"[Chris] Sale set the tone early [in Game 1], and pitching is just as contagious as hitting is," Beck said. "I was ready to go out there and give them my full effort for as long as I could and unfortunately today I didn't get the job done.
"It's something to build on, to go back to Charlotte and work on some consistency and just keep commanding the zone and hopefully come back up here and get another shot at it and give the team a better chance to win next time."
Soto thinks that could happen one day down the road.
"I felt like he did great," Soto said. "He was working both sides of the plate and his breaking pitches were there. It was the first time I caught him but I think he has great stuff. It was a good changeup, a great changeup, good slider, command of the fastball. Give credit to the other team, but I thought he did a great job."