Brewers: Corbin Burnes Officially Clinches First ERA Title In Franchise History

For the first time in Milwaukee Brewers franchise history, they have the pitcher with baseball’s best ERA on their roster, and his name is Corbin Burnes.

The road has been long and winding, not just for Burnes, but for the Brewers search for their first ERA title. Jeff D’Amico had a chance two decades ago to win an ERA title, but crumbled in his final outing after fighting through an injury.

Burnes had a chance last season, but gave up a few runs and left his final start early with an injury and ended up an out shy of qualifying for the ERA title.

Corbin Burnes not only won the NL ERA title, but he also won MLB’s overall ERA title, posting a 2.43 ERA on the season for the Brewers.

It’s been quite the journey for Corbin Burnes. He was arguably the worst pitcher in baseball in 2019, giving up nine home runs in his first 3 starts covering just 14.1 IP. In 2021, he allowed just seven home runs in the whole season, covering 167 IP.

Then in 2020, things started to turn around for him as he worked with a new arsenal and he figured some things out mentally. His dominance in the shortened 2020 season was only a precursor of what was to come this year. Burnes finished 6th in Cy Young voting last year.

Burnes has been elite the whole season at preventing runs, and with five innings to spare on qualifying for the leaderboards, he did something no Brewers pitcher has done before.

The NL ERA Leaderboard

Here’s where things finished up on the ERA leaderboard.

1. Corbin Burnes (2.43)
2. Max Scherzer (2.46)
3. Walker Buehler (2.47)
4. Brandon Woodruff (2.56)
5. Zack Wheeler (2.78)

Yep, the Brewers have two pitchers in the Top 5 on the ERA leaderboard. This was something that sounded completely unrealistic not too long ago.

Corbin Burnes has himself as the frontrunner in the NL Cy Young race and solidifying his ERA title could help go a long way towards securing the top award for pitchers in all of baseball. With his ERA title in hand, as well as the other accolades and statistical achievements this year, he should be an obvious choice to be the Cy Young.

Burnes had a much larger lead for the ERA title heading into his final outing. He was at a 2.29 ERA before that start against the Dodgers. He gave up a three run homer in the first inning and was pulled after he completed the second inning. His ERA jumped a little, but not enough to where he lost his claim on the top spot.

This is an incredible accomplishment for the 26 year old Burnes and there’s still plenty more ahead for the Brewers young ace.