Last night saw Chase Burns, the Reds 2024 1st round pick and #2 overall selection in the MLB Draft make his big league debut less than a year after he was taken. If you look at the stat line he put up last night it doesn’t quite tell you the entire story.
He threw 81 pitches in 5.0 innings and gave up three earned runs, walked no one, and he struck out eight batters. That’s a solid line, no doubt. But he probably should have had one fewer run allowed. In the 4th inning he gave up a 2-run triple, but it was only a triple because outfielder TJ Friedl made a diving attempt on a ball in front of him that he came up well short of and it then bounced by him and went to the wall. It should have been a single that brought in one run, not two.
Those things are going to happen to guys if they pitch for any amount of time, though. Some days the defense will make a mistake and cost you. But other days they’ll save your butt.
Let’s take a look at how his pitch usage was in his debut:
| Use | AvgVelo | MaxVelo | Strikes | Balls | Whiffs | Whiff% | |
| 4-Seam | 59% | 98.2 | 100.5 | 29 | 19 | 3 | 13% |
| Slider | 30% | 89.5 | 93.5 | 18 | 6 | 6 | 40% |
| Change | 10% | 90.4 | 92.5 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 0% |
| Curve | 1% | 82.1 | 82.1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0% |
We are dealing with a small sample size of just three starts to look at here but Burns threw his fastball significantly more in his debut than he did in his two starts in Triple-A. The more fastballs seem to have come at the expense of the curveball. Last night he only threw one curveball, but he threw 14 of them in his two starts with Louisville.
Obviously the game itself dictates the pitch usage. How the opposition is reacting, or not reacting to things comes into play. And then of course there’s some days when you just aren’t feeling good about a specific pitch and use it less.
The night started out with Chase Burns striking out the first five hitters he faced before he gave up a single. He then struck out the next batter, giving him six through the first two innings. He would only strike out two batters the rest of the way – one in the 3rd inning and then one more in the 5th. Both of those final two strikeouts were against Trent Grisham, who would probably like to never face Burns again after last night.
If you watched the game you certainly saw that the game and moment wasn’t too big for Burns. He seemed ready to go and unphased when presented with a challenge. When asked after the game why he went after Aaron Judge in the 5th inning with a runner on third instead of walking him, Burns said “Just trust my stuff really. That’s what Steve-o (Tyler Stephenson) said, just go out there and don’t change. I’m not going to change just because it’s a batter. He’s still got to hit the ball.”
Confidence. It can go a long way. Of course when you’ve got the pitches like Burns has the confidence tends to follow. In that at-bat against Judge, it paid off as he got him to pop up and end the inning.
With an off day on Thursday, the next time Chase Burns is likely to take the mound will be on Monday against the Red Sox in Boston at Fenway. That gives you several days in order to get your popcorn ready.