Burnes has allowed 3 earned runs in 25 innings this month
For much of the season, even though the cutter wasn’t coming out of Corbin Burnes’ right hand the way he would’ve liked, he accepted the outcome because the offering was still producing results.
The pitches were higher in the strike zone than he would’ve preferred, a product of his spin rate increasing to the point that his cutter had more ride than run — that is, it appeared to rise out of his hand while not moving as much horizontally.
It worked for a while. Then in August, as batters began to tee off on the pitch, Burnes realized his luck had run out. Hitters produced a .321 average against the cutter during that month, and in five starts Burnes allowed 28 runs — the most in a single month during his career.
“I was getting too efficient with how I was spinning it, which was making it a shitty four-seam fastball,” Burnes said, “and it was getting hit like a shitty four-seam fastball.”
Years ago, Burnes did away with his four-seamer for this very reason. The cutter, with less velocity but more glove-side run, proved to be the key that unlocked Burnes’ run of success. He won the 2021 Cy Young Award, in part, because of the cutter. It helped him earn four straight All-Star appearances, including this year, despite it coming out of his hand differently.
So at the end of August, having watched opposing hitters find the most concentrated success against the ace they ever have, Burnes sought a solution. He slightly adjusted his mechanics to change how the cutter spun out of his hand.
“It worked for the first half of the year, but it was more so getting away with it because our breaking balls and stuff were so good,” Burnes said. “Cutter wasn’t performing that good. It got to a point where guys weren’t swinging at the breaking stuff and were just keying in on the cutter, and it beat us for two or three starts in August. Frankly, it may have cost me another run at the Cy Young. So, once we kind of hit that rough patch, those two or three in a row, it was, ‘OK, now it’s time to get back to the cutter we know we can get to.’”
Burnes has revived his best pitch just in time.
Including his seven shutout innings Friday, Burnes has allowed three earned runs in 25 innings this month. Those four starts have washed away his poor August and showed why the Orioles traded for him last offseason. Baltimore wanted an ace to take the mound in the postseason and, behind a cutter that’s back to its best, Burnes is that guy.
“Just changing the shape of the cutter helped me command it that much better, command it where I want to that much better, and we’re getting back to getting the swing and miss and throwing to both sides of the plate,” Burnes said. “It just makes my world so much easier with the breaking stuff, as well. It’s definitely in a good spot. We’re on a good run here with three or four good ones in a row, so just trying to keep it going and build off what we got.”
The change in the pitch’s profile between September and earlier in the year is stark.
Burnes’ cutter is averaging a career-low 2.3 inches of horizontal movement this year, down from 4.4 in 2022. In June 2024, it averaged only 1 inch. In July and August, it averaged 2 inches. But in September, his cutter has risen again to a season-high 4 inches of horizontal break — in line with his average during 2021, when he won the National League Cy Young Award.
In addition to more horizontal break, Burnes added 5 inches of vertical dip to his cutter in September compared to August, which helped deceive hitters.
As a result, his cutter is averaging a season-high 22.2% swing-and-miss rate in September. He’s also spotting it better, with 50.3% of his cutters on the edge of the zone, per Statcast, compared to 43.2% in July.
And Burnes’ chase rate — when hitters swing at an offering out of the zone — has skyrocketed. In September, his cutter has a season-high chase rate of 68.4%, up from 24% in July and 30% in August.
Burnes said he got away from his best cutter early in the year, mainly because of his mechanics, and he didn’t immediately make a change because he “had success with it so we kind of ran with it.”
“But started doing things I didn’t normally do in the past,” Burnes said, “which is throwing that cutter up in the zone and getting better life to it. It was something new, so it worked for three months until the league caught on, so it was good to adjust and get back to what I needed to do.”
Burnes will take the bump Thursday at Yankee Stadium and will be on regular rest to start the first game of the wild-card round. Last year, when the Orioles were swept in the American League Division Series, an obvious detriment to their task was the lack of experience in their starting rotation.
Burnes has pitched in October before. And, with a pitch that looks and acts like his cutter of old, he looks ready for October once more.
“To add more horizontal took the ride off it and got it back to the bottom of the zone, which just profiles better with what I do,” Burnes said. “And, obviously, the last month has shown it.”
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