PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – In his third MLB start this season Mike Burrows looked more like the pitcher from AAA as the Pirates evened the series with Houston, 3-0 Wednesday night.
“He was awesome," said Pirates manager Don Kelly. "We talked about being able to slow things down and he goes 3-0 on Pena to start the game. He slowed it down immediately and ended up striking him out in that first inning. Just did a great job of mixing it up. His velo was up a little bit, mixed in the changeup, switched sides of the plate. Endy did a fantastic job calling it. He had a big strikeout there on Melton, tripled up on the changeup. Just did a great job.”
Burrows went 5.1 innings allowing no runs on five hits with no walks and six strikeouts. He threw 70 pitches, 42 for strikes. In his two previous starts with the Bucs, the right-hander went 8.1 innings, nine runs, four walks and five strikeouts with three home runs allowed.
"I think I came out with a little bit of adrenaline and settled in from there," Burrows said. "I overcomplicated the game in the first two outings. I just kept it simple and made the pitches and tried to get quick outs tonight."
In his last four starts in the minors he allowed two runs over 17.2 innings. In one of those games he struck out 11 in 4.2 innings and doing the math that means all of the outs but three were strikeouts. Still just 25 and a couple years removed from Tommy John surgery, Burrows was the Pirates minor-league pitcher of the year in 2022.
Burrows wasn’t the only pitcher who started in AAA that impacted the game. Braxton Ashcraft has battled injuries and the starter coming out of the bullpen gave the Pirates two scoreless innings allowing only one hit with three strikeouts. Chase Shugart pitched two-thirds of an inning. David Bednar closed it for his seventh save.
The Pirates tied a season-high with a dozen strikeouts.
Offense
It wasn’t actually a breakout, in fact the Pirates didn’t score a run off a hit Wednesday night. A night after giving Paul Skenes no run support, the Pirates scored on an Isiah Kiner-Falefa fielders’ choice and an Andrew McCutchen sacrifice fly in the second inning. Then in the third scored on a double play ball by Adam Frazier.
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Final game of the series with Mitch Keller (1-7, 3.73 ERA) against LHP Framber Valdez (5-4, 3.12 ERA). Thursday’s game is on 100.1 FM and AM 1020 KDKA due to the Fan 5 Alarm Marathon raising money for local volunteer fire departments. Dan Zangrilli hosts the North Shore Tavern Leadoff Show at 5:45p with first pitch at 6:40p.