Milwaukee Brewers: How was Corbin Burnes MLB debut?

Milwaukee Brewers second ranked prospect, Corbin Burnes, made his Major League debut on Tuesday night against the Miami Marlins. How did he look? Could he evolve into Josh Hader 2.0?

Corbin Burnes picked up a save in his first Major League game. He was the first Milwaukee Brewers rookie pitcher to earn a save in his first appearance since Dave LaPoint in 1980. But how did he really look?

What were the results?

After sending his first Major League pitch to the backstop, Burnes worked two innings and faced the minimum of six batters. He induced three grounders, two flies, and struck out Marlins catcher Bryan Holaday. Burnes needed 25 pitches to work through six hitters, and 18 went for strikes.

What kind of stuff did he have?

Burnes flashed a four-seam fastball with good movement that topped out at 95.9 MPH. His slider showed good life and ran up to 88.9 MPH. He got a pair of swinging strikes against Holaday with the slider, including strike three.

He only threw threw three curve balls on the evening. The first was in the zone, but was ruled a ball against Cameron Maybin in the eighth. He mixed the curve in during the ninth and picked up a swinging strike against Derek Dietrich, and got Brian Anderson to pop out to end the game.

His MLB Pipeline profile says he has a change up, but he didn’t use it on Tuesday night.

Is Burnes the next Josh Hader?

He’s a rookie pitcher who looked solid in his first outing. Any comparisons to the Milwaukee Brewers All-Star lefty are premature…for now.

His four-seamer was a little quicker than scouting reports indicated, and the breaking stuff is Major League quality. If this was the first time Brewers fans got to see Burnes, he made a great initial impression.

Next: Could Burnes go to the O's for Machado?

Burnes started 2017 in High-A, and it was great to see him have a successful debut with the Major League team in 2018. His future may lie in the Milwaukee Brewers rotation, but for now they’ll settle for him eating up innings out of the bullpen, and taking the pressure off Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader. He could take on a bigger role, but there’s also a chance he winds up going back to Colorado Springs in the next round of ‘roster roulette’ that the short-handed Brewers have to play until the All-Star break.