INSIDE THE START: Brewers' Corbin Burnes Twirls Gem in 8-0 Win Over St. Louis Cardinals
If you didn't see what was brewing with the Milwaukee Brewers starting pitching last season, then you're definitely seeing it now.
The one-two punch of Corbin Burnes and Brandon Woodruff was among the best tandems in MLB.
Oh, and Burnes took home his first Cy Young Award, posting an 11-5 record with a 2.43 ERA and a 6.9 K/BB ratio, with 234 strikeouts and just 34 walks over 167 innings pitched.
While he encountered a slight bit of trouble to start the 2022 season, Burnes has turned back into his dominant self, even more so, with a sub-2.00 ERA through his first 10 starts and a .183 batting average against for opponents.
Sunday afternoon was arguably Burnes' best start of the season, striking out 11 over seven scoreless innings of work, giving up just two hits to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Burnes reached career strikeout No. 500 during the game in his 112th game pitched and 51st start.
Since debuting in MLB in 2018, Burnes was slowly eased into the starter role and the Covid-shortened 2020 season was when we first saw the ceiling of him.
Within a year, he built upon that multi-year foundation, winning the aforementioned NL Cy Young in 2021 and is already making a case for a second in 2022.
Let's take a look closer at the numbers of what Burnes did on Sunday, especially with his most effective pitch, the cutter.
He threw 58 percent cutters on the day, sitting around 94 MPH on the gun while getting up to as high as 95.5 MPH. Of those 57 pitches, 22 were either called strikes or swing-and-misses.
Burnes induced 16 swings-and-misses on the day, along with another 23 called strikes on top of that.
While he only threw seven sliders on the day, he got five called strikes or swings-and-misses, locating the pitch effectively and getting hitters to bite on it.
Opponents' average exit velocity was 84.2, over four miles-per-hour lower than his current season average, which is a massive positive.
Incuding soft contact for a starter creates a great advantage, but knowing that Burnes is more of a power pitcher, expect a higher average exit velocity.
Last year, he sat at 85.5 MPH in that category, which was among the top four percent in the league. This year, expect much of the same.
Milwaukee secured a series split against St. Louis and will be traveling to Chicago for a series against the Cubs to start the week.
