After Cy win, will Burnes start Opening Day?

PHOENIX -- Christian Yelich saw Corbin Burnes at his lowest. In 2019, the year Burnes shuttled between the Majors, the Minors and the Brewers’ pitching lab trying to answer how a pitcher with such electric stuff was finding so little in the way of results, Yelich had a neighboring locker at American Family Field.

“That was the bad luck locker,” Yelich said. “Everybody who had it was up and down. It was a revolving door.”

Burnes, as you probably noticed, made it back. On the heels of that disheartening ’19 season, he turned a hittable four-seam fastball into one of baseball’s best cutters with an adjustment of grip. He underwent Lasik. He worked with a mental skills coach and transformed his outlook of failure.

And then, he had a ton of success. In the shortened 2020 season, Burnes flirted with the National League ERA title. In 2021, he set strikeout records, made his first All-Star team, combined with Josh Hader on the Brewers’ second ever no-hitter and became the first Brewers pitcher in a generation to win his league’s Cy Young Award.

Now, what could Burnes do to top that?

A first career start on Opening Day appears to be on the horizon.

Brewers manager Craig Counsell isn’t ready to name his pick for that ceremonial honor, and Burnes wasn’t ready to talk about the possibility Monday after throwing about 75 pitches in five sharp innings of a 5-2 win over the Giants, when he surrendered a leadoff double and then retired 14 of the final 16 hitters he faced with eight strikeouts. He has been lined up all spring at the top of a starting rotation that represents the clear strength of a team with World Series aspirations. Brandon Woodruff, who has started each of the past two regular-season openers, has been pitching a day after Burnes, followed by Freddy Peralta, Adrian Houser and Eric Lauer.

What would the assignment mean to Burnes?

“I’ll hold off on that one,” he said. “I don’t want to jump the gun on that one yet. We’ll wait for the next week to see what happens.”

Burnes said he’s aiming for 30 starts in 2022 after leading MLB in ERA (2.43), expected ERA (2.00), FanGraphs WAR (7.5), strikeout rate (35.6%, eighth-best all-time for a qualifying pitcher), K/BB ratio (6.88), FIP (1.63), home runs per nine innings (0.38) and barrel rate (3.1%) in 2021.

He made history along the way. Burnes started the season with 58 strikeouts before issuing a walk, breaking Adam Wainwright’s record for a starting pitcher and Kenley Jansen’s record for any pitcher in a season. On Aug. 11, Burnes struck out 10 consecutive Cubs to match the Major League mark shared by Hall of Famer Tom Seaver and Aaron Nola. And on Sept. 11 in Cleveland, Burnes threw the first eight innings of the second no-hitter in Brewers history, watching from the dugout as Hader secured the final three outs.

It completed a stunning transformation. Just two years earlier, in 2019, Burnes had an 8.82 ERA in 49 innings.

“I think that just shows how hard the big leagues are,” Yelich said. “It’s constantly about making adjustments. You have to always be trying to get better. Sometimes it takes guys some time to settle in. Everybody wants young guys to come up and be stars or they’re no good. There’s a handful of guys that do that.

“I forget who it was, but I remember talking to somebody at first base [in 2019] when Burnes was really struggling. He said, ‘This guy is going to be really good.’”

Burnes said he still strives to get better. He has been focused this spring on honing his preparation between starts, believing there is room to improve there. Burnes spent two weeks on the COVID-19 IL last season and pitched in a rotation that sometimes featured a sixth starter.

Back-to-back Cy Young Awards are not unprecedented in Brewers history, but Burnes is bidding to be the first pitcher to do it himself. Rollie Fingers and Pete Vuckovich won the award in back-to-back seasons in the American League in 1981 and ’82. In the Burnes household, which grew by one on March 2 with the birth of a son named Carter, the honor still hasn’t quite sunk in.

“I think my wife a couple of times has kind of been like, 'Whoa, that actually happened,’” Burnes said. “Maybe once I get the trophy and it's sitting on the mantle underneath the TV, maybe it'll hit me a bit more.

“It's just one of those things that for me -- it was a good season. I did what I wanted to do and went into prepping this offseason the same kind of way. Hopefully we can do it again.”