How Corbin Burnes Evolved into an All-Star

SAN FRANCISCO — Few Major League Baseball pitchers have enjoyed the type of breakout success that Corbin Burnes has enjoyed during the last two seasons. He and the Milwaukee Brewers find themselves in first place in the National League Central division, and are in the middle of a four-game series against the National League West leading-San Francisco Giants, bringing Burnes back to the Bay Area.
 
"It's always good to be back in the Bay Area," Burnes told Saint Mary's Athletics on Tuesday before the Brewers 6-2 win over the Giants on Tuesday night. "With going to school up here and having a lot of friends that still live up here, and I have a lot of family that lives up here now, so it's a good homecoming."
 
That homecoming turned out to be a pretty sweet one for Burnes, who was the winning pitcher in Monday night's 3-1 Brewers win. Burnes tossed six innings of one-run baseball, allowing four hits and striking out nine Giants without allowing a walk. Not only did he earn the win, he drove in the second run of the game for Milwaukee, sending an RBI-single into left field in the second inning for his fourth RBI of the year.
 
"To come out and throw a good game and get an RBI knock on top of it made it even better," Burnes commented.
 
It was just another in a long line of strong performances over the last two years that has made Burnes one of the front-runners for the NL Cy Young Award. His journey has seen ups and downs, and those began when he was a freshman pitching in the Gaels rotation.
 
Before Burnes was an anchor in the rotation for then-head coach Eric Valenzuela, Burnes went through an 0-4 season in 2014, with a 6.18 ERA across 19 appearances. By the time he was drafted in the fourth round of the 2016 MLB Draft? 9-2 with a 2.48 ERA across 16 starts, with the third-most strikeouts in a single season in SMC history (120).
 
"It was still just part of maturing and learning more as a baseball player and a pitcher," explained Burnes about his transition from 2014-16. "My first year at Saint Mary's was really just my second- or third-year pitching so I was still learning a lot, my body was still changing a lot…I was maturing as a kid. That's what went into most of it, but also just learning the game of baseball and learning about pitching."
 
That success continued well into his relatively-brief minor league rise with the Milwaukee Brewers, as he reached the major leagues in 2018, just two short years after being a fourth-round draft pick. Upon reaching the majors, Burnes found himself in the bullpen and pitching well: going unbeaten with a 7-0 record, a 2.61 ERA, and 35 strikeouts in 38 innings.
 
In 2019, Milwaukee moved Burnes into the starting rotation, and things changed. Burnes saw his ERA rise to 8.82 in 49 innings before being demoted in the middle of the year. What seemed like a budding big-league career was put on hold.
 
"Getting my first opportunity to start in the big leagues in 2019 obviously didn't go very smoothly," recalled Burnes. "It was just learning how to be a starter in the big leagues. I knew I had the stuff, I knew I could pitch at this level from 2018, so it was learning myself more as a starter and learning how to get guys out at the big leagues.
 
"I was trying not to overpower and over-muscle everything because any type of mistake at this level, there's guys that will make you pay."
 
That simple approach to getting back on track that helped Burnes develop at Saint Mary's was what he stuck to following his demotion, and he was back in a big way. Burnes was a force in the Brewers rotation in 2020, striking out 88 in 59.2 innings while posting a 2.11 earned run average, finishing sixth in the Cy Young voting. In 2021, he leads the National League in strikeouts per nine innings (12.2), and has the fewest walks per nine innings at 1.7. He famously began the season with 58 strikeouts before his first walk, a major league record, and tied another in August by striking out 10-straight Chicago Cubs.
 
"For me it's about trying to keep it under control. Every now and then I'll get out there and feel really good and try to light up the radar gun and try to hit 100 miles per hour, but for me I do a lot better when everything is under control, in about that 95-99% range."
 
The improvement in numbers was good enough to land Burnes a spot in the 2021 MLB All-Star game, the first All-Star nod of his young career. Burnes made an appearance in the game as well, throwing two innings with a pair of strikeouts.
 
"To be included with the top names in the game and to get that recognition is pretty cool," Burnes admitted. "You never start the year hoping, 'hey, I'm going to be at the All-Star Game in July,' but it was something you always dream about as a kid so to get that opportunity this year for the first time…hopefully it's one of many."
 
There should be plenty more All-Star games between the three at the top of the Brewers rotation. Between Burnes and his rotation mates Brandon Woodruff (Tuesday's starter) and Freddy Peralta, all three made the 2021 MLB All-Star game. That competition has only made the three of them better, in the eyes of Burnes.
 
"It's good friendly competition," explained Burnes. "We're constantly talking and bouncing ideas off of each other. We knew coming in that we had an opportunity to be the 'Big Three' at the top of the rotation, so that's kind of something that we take pride in and we want to learn from each other and build off of each other. So far, to this point in the season, it's done pretty well and we want to keep that going."
 
As someone who has been through the ups and downs and of baseball at both the collegiate and professional level, Burnes offered some good advice to the current crop of Gaels.
 
"As long as the college season might feel, your time in college is very short," Burnes said. "I had three pretty quick years there, so my advice would be to enjoy it, soak it in, and get what you can out of the college experience because once you get to professional baseball, it's every day. Playing three or four days a week turns into six or seven, so make sure you enjoy the college experience and the game with your teammates because when you get to the professional level, it's a business…it's an everyday job."
 
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