Burrows' swing-and-miss changeup among takeaways against Cubs

CHICAGO -- Considering all the hype surrounding guys like Paul Skenes and Jared Jones last year and Bubba Chandler (No. 1 prospect) and Hunter Barco (No. 5 prospect) this year, Mike Burrows might not have been on everyone’s radar coming into this season.

But the team’s No. 15 prospect (according to MLB Pipeline) has shown some promise over his first five Major League starts, including Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field.

It may have come in a losing effort, as the Pirates fell to the Cubs, 2-1, but Burrows struck out eight and did not surrender a walk over 5 1/3 innings.

“He's doing a good job,” manager Don Kelly said. “He's had some things to build off of each start. At first, obviously they weren't perfect. Found ways to slow it down and continues to get better each time he goes out. Changeup was really good again today and fastball had life. He pitched really well against a really good offense.”

This was probably the most complete pitch mix we’ve seen from Burrows in the Majors thus far, following along with catcher Henry Davis’ calls to pretty evenly distribute his breaking and offspeed stuff.

“It was kind of whatever the situation called for,” Burrows said. “Whatever we were seeing from swing to swing on their swings, their takes, whatever the case is."

The changeup still remains the star pitch, though, getting 10 whiffs on 14 swings and accounting for six of his strikeouts. Burrows has now racked up 30 whiffs with that pitch, the second-most on the Pirates behind Skenes (33).

"I've got confidence that it's going to be there every start,” Burrows said. “I think, again, just going to the situation, where we were at in that at-bat, where we were at in the game and what they had seen the first time through."

Major move

Burrows was pulled after 81 pitches, giving way for Ryan Borucki to face the lefty-hitting Pete Crow-Armstrong. The early-season MVP candidate is leading the National League in fWAR, and had a hit off of Burrows already, but Kelly’s explanation for the move was Burrows nearing his season high in pitches. He maxed out at 87 pitches in a game in the Minors, and Burrows was at 81 by the time he handed the ball over with one out in the sixth.

Borucki retired Crow-Armstrong, but Dansby Swanson homered off him the following at-bat.

“Obviously, didn't work out perfectly, but just thought that [Burrows] had pitched extremely well to that point,” Kelly said. “Liked Borucki with two out of three lefties coming up.”

Kelly buys into hand splits and Borucki has a good track record against left-handers, but it was the one righty who got him. However, Burrows had no hard feelings being taken out there.

"I've got trust in DK that he's making the best choices for us,” Burrows said. “So if he says it's time to give him the ball, it's time to give him the ball."

Pitching fits

Of course, given the amount of pitching in the Pirates’ system, it’s fair to wonder how Burrows, and several other young pitchers, fit into this staff moving forward.

Braxton Ashcraft (No. 7 prospect) and Carmen Mlodzinski are two who are also in a similar spot. The door is open for both to potentially start down the road, but they are in bulk relief at the moment. Both threw two scoreless innings the last two days, with Ashcraft retiring all six Cubs he faced on Saturday.

Mlodzinski was solid out of the bullpen the past two years, and it’s not too hard to imagine Ashcraft being a dominant reliever if he continued down that path. The thing is Mlodzinski has advocated for years that he wants to start, so while he’s willing to take the step back into the bullpen now, it’s not his career goal.

“I'm here to help the team any way I can,” Mlodzinski said on Thursday. “... They didn't say, 'Hey, you're a reliever the rest of your life.' It was, 'We want our best pitchers in the big leagues,' which I understand. Whatever that role is, I'm going to have to take it and do it the best I can."

Even whenever you factor in injuries and potential trades down the road, the Pirates just have a lot of starting pitching options. It’s a good problem to have, but it means they’re probably going to have to stash some in the bullpen. This year is a potential opportunity to see who could pitch well in that role and who could buy-in to the opportunity.