Mad dash: Burnes seizes chance to turn on the jets

PITTSBURGH -- You already knew Corbin Burnes’ credentials as a pitcher.

Who knew he’d also be a serviceable pinch-runner?

Burnes’ surprising sprint from the home plate area to the dugout and down the tunnel at PNC Park was one of Milwaukee’s many highlights in a 19-2 win over the Pirates on Friday. The Brewers scored seven runs and hit three homers in the second inning, added eight more runs in an eighth inning punctuated by Willy Adames’ grand slam and saw Burnes’ latest flirtation with a no-hitter in an all-around romp.

It was the latest example of Burnes playing stopper for a starting rotation bitten by injuries, even though the Brewers’ offense removed all the pressure. Pitching with a 7-0 lead after Luis Urías, Keston Hiura and Rowdy Tellez all took Pirates starter Roansy Contreras deep in the Brewers’ first three-homer inning since August 2019, Burnes gloved Jack Suwinski’s wind-blown foul pop to end the bottom of the second inning while catcher Omar Narváez looked on, then made a mad dash toward the visitors’ dugout to the delight of his teammates.

“A lot of people like to think pitchers aren’t athletes,” Burnes said. “I had to show Omar that we are.”

Score it 100 points. Burnes & Co. have a game in which they accrue points for defense, and catching a pop-up -- the rarest of feats for a pitcher -- is at the top of the scale.

“He’s still laughing,” said Narváez. “I’m pretty sure if you ask him tomorrow, he’s going to be laughing again. I knew he would run off the field laughing, and I knew everyone was going to be on my back after that -- which everybody was.

“It’s OK. Sometimes it’s good to have fun and do a little thing like that, just to keep it loose. That’s the key to being good and on a winning team. We have fun with each other, we laugh at each other, we make fun of each other. There’s no ego.”

That odd moment was befitting a curious outing. Burnes didn’t allow a hit or a run until the sixth inning despite a slew of signs that he wasn’t working with his best stuff. By the time his 100-pitch, 54-strike outing was over, Burnes had allowed only one hit and one run despite four walks (matching his career high), five strikeouts (one more than his season-low), a hit batsman and a wild pitch that produced the Pirates’ only run.

He induced a season-low eight swings and misses, three fewer than any other outing this season.

“As far as the results go, they look good,” Burnes said. “But if you look underneath, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Burnes described his electric cutter as “hit or miss all year,” and it was largely a “miss” on Friday against a Pirates lineup known for being on the patient side. The discrepancy between the box score and the reality of his outing is precisely why Burnes re-watches his outings and rates every pitch for execution. He didn’t need to see the video to know that Friday’s execution percentage will be his lowest so far this season.

But Brewers hitters made sure he had plenty of room for error.

They scored seven runs in the second inning off Pirates starter Contreras, who lasted only five outs. It was 9-0 by the fourth, and Tellez already had five RBIs. The Brewers tacked on eight more runs in the eighth before making the first out of an inning highlighted by Adames’ fourth career grand slam, then two more runs in the ninth against a position player, Pirates first baseman Josh VanMeter.

The Brewers set a season high for runs and, with 16 hits including five home runs, came up one shy of their season highs in both categories. According to Elias Sports, it was the first time in franchise history that the Brewers scored seven-plus runs in multiple innings.

“We got it started and we didn’t stop,” said Andrew McCutchen, who had three hits, scored a pair of runs and is 7-for-18 on this road trip. “I think we carried that momentum over from [Thursday] night. We had a good game last night and we just happened to lose, but we fought back. I was like, ‘Tomorrow is about to be special.’”

What was McCutchen’s assessment of Burnes’ defense?

“He got in there, made the play and got out of there,” McCutchen said. “Athlete.”

Burnes insisted that there are no side bets on the line on the pitchers’ point game, only pride, a sentiment echoed by fellow starter Eric Lauer. He has caught a pop-up this season, too.

“It was nice to catch one in Omar’s dirt,” Burnes said.

Word in the clubhouse was that the baseball from Hoby Milner’s recent pop-up was authenticated and placed in a case, though that was news to some of the other pitchers.

Burnes was asked what became of his ball, and he managed to answer with a straight face.

“I tossed it to Omar,” Burnes said, “so he could catch it and feel what that was like.”