Corbin Burnes throws first scoreless start of year as O's beat Detroit (updated)

DETROIT – An Orioles starting rotation that had been pitching well recently kept it going tonight behind their ace.

With the team losing and not scoring many runs in dropping six of eight games, it was harder to notice the solid rotation outings. But in the last three games, O’s starters had an ERA of 1.37. Over their past seven games their ERA was 2.57 with five quality starts.

Right-hander Corbin Burnes, the 2021 National League Cy Young Award winner and 2024 All-Star game starter for the American League, took that up a notch today.

Burnes allowed two singles over seven scoreless innings tonight as the Orioles beat Detroit 4-2 to bounce back after their one-hit loss Friday night.

Baltimore improved to 84-65 and moved to within two games of first-place New York, which lost today. The win keeps the O’s two games ahead of Kansas City for the top AL wild card spot.

Burnes had made 29 starts this year, none scoreless until this one. Nine times he gave up one run and twice no earned runs, but this was the first start in which he was not scored upon at all.

Burnes was dealing, but would this struggling offense help him much?

Held without a baserunner until the eighth inning and without a hit until there were two outs in the ninth in last night's game, today the O’s got their first baserunner when Gunnar Henderson walked to start the game. They had their first hit on a one-out single in the second by Ryan O’Hearn.

And in the top of the third they did something they did not do at all last night: They scored a run.

The Tigers once again used an opener tonight, and it was the same pitcher as last night, right-hander Beau Brieske. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he became the first Tigers pitcher to start a game on consecutive days since George Uhle on Aug. 4-5, 1929. So it’s been a minute.

He got four outs last night and three tonight, pitching a scoreless first even after walking the first two batters. Spencer Torkelson made a nice backhanded play against Anthony Santander in turning a 3-6-1 double play, and then Brieske fanned Adley Rutschman in his 23-pitch scoreless inning.

He turned it over to right-hander Ty Madden in the top of the second. An inning later the O’s got a 1-0 lead on him.

With two outs, Henderson doubled to right, drilling a cutter 108.7 mph. Cedric Mullins singled to center to score him for the 1-0 lead.

The Orioles, who had been 6-for-47 with runners in scoring position, scoring 15 runs over their past eight games, got the hit with RISP this time to get on the board.

Burnes, meanwhile, was rolling, protecting that 1-0 lead. He faced one over the minimum the first three innings on 39 pitches, allowing only a first-inning single. He pitched three consecutive 1-2-3 innings in the fourth through the sixth and was at 83 pitches for 18 outs.

Burnes got 17 whiffs over the first six innings, one off his season high. He got a combined nine whiffs on 11 swings in those innings off his slider and curveball.

The Orioles then opened a bigger lead for him, scoring three runs in the top of the seventh off reliever Kenta Maeda. He hit Emmanuel Rivera with one out, and Rivera advanced to third on Livan Soto’s double to right. A line drive sac fly to left by No. 9 hitter James McCann provided the O’s a 2-0 lead. Then Henderson hit a two-run shot to right, No. 37, for a 4-0 margin. It was his fourth homer in his last 11 games.

Burnes and the bullpen took it from there. Although it got dicey in the ninth. 

Burnes is now 14-8 with a 3.06 ERA. He walked one and fanned seven, throwing 97 pitches 59 for strikes. He has allowed only four earned runs in 23 innings his past four games.

Burnes tonight delivered his ninth career shutout appearance of seven or more innings allowing two or fewer hits. 

Cionel Pérez gave up two hits but no runs in the eighth. Seranthony Domínguez allowed a leadoff homer in the ninth to Parker Meadows as the O's were denied their 10th shutout. A two-out RBI single by Spencer Torkelson made it a 4-2 game. But Domínguez closed it out, leaving two runners on base to finally end it.

Detroit fell to 76-73 on the year and to 21-10 in the last 31 games. 

Cano note: In his postgame interview, manager Brandon Hyde said reliever Yennier Cano was not available tonight.

"Yeah, he’s just been down the last couple days," Hyde said. "Ever since that last Boston game, he’s just had a little bit of soreness. We wanted to give him a couple days off. Hopefully he’s back tomorrow." 

Other postgame quotes:

Hyde, was this Burnes' best game?: “For me, it was. Just had everything going. The cutter was excellent to both sides of the plate, great breaking balls, a lot of changeups to the left-handers that were at the knees and below, not a whole lot of hard contact. Best start of the year for him, for me.

“He won us the game by going out and throwing seven zeros up there. With our offense, we’re grinding right now offensively to score runs in bunches. For him to do what he did (after) last night, two veteran starting guys that gave us two really good starts that we needed.”

Hyde, it was important to finally get a few runs: "Gunnar just leaning on that ball. Mac doing a great job putting the ball in play with two strikes in a second-and-third situation after the Soto double. And then Gunnar just getting a pitch to hit and putting an exclamation point on that inning. Any time we can create some separation, runs-wise, as you saw in the ninth inning, the better we’re for it. That’s something we’ve had a tough time with this year, and it was a huge hit for us at the time."

Burnes, a critical start for him?: "I think, like I've mentioned in the past, every start for me is the same. It doesn't matter if it's Opening Day, if it's the end of the year, if it's postseason, I go out and I treat every start the same. I prepare the same, and I'm going out and trying to execute as many pitches as I can. We had a great win tonight. It was good baseball. Hopefully, we can carry that into tomorrow."

Burnes, so you didn't put pressure on yourself to come up big?: "If you go out and put pressure on yourself and you try to do too much, that's when bad things happen. But for me, I go out there and I prepare the same. All I can do is execute one pitch after another, and if I can do that repeatedly, things should be pretty good."

McCann, after last night, how big was this win?: "This was a big win for us. It’s no secret that the ball hasn’t been bouncing our way, that things haven’t gone our way. But one thing about this clubhouse, we’ve stayed close through it all. We are going to keep grinding together. We understand that it’s a marathon of a season, we’re not going to let one month, two months define us. It’s one of the strengths of this team. We are going to keep fighting and keep doing everything we can to get better."

McCann, how good was Burnes?: "That’s the best I’ve seen him in a long time. He commanded the baseball extremely well to both sides of the plate. Had everything working from the get-go and the result showed."