{"id":370812,"date":"2026-07-13T03:44:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:44:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370812\/"},"modified":"2026-07-13T03:44:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T03:44:48","slug":"burns-picked-in-eighth-round-of-2026-mlb-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/370812\/","title":{"rendered":"Burns picked in eighth round of 2026 MLB Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Texas Longhorns junior <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/thomas-burns\/17038\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"17038\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas Burns<\/a> was selected in the eighth round (No. 227 overall) by the Minnesota Twins in the 2026 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Burns became the fourth Longhorn to be\u00a0picked in the draft, joining Twins&#8217; second-rounder <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/carson-tinney\/15056\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15056\" target=\"_blank\">Carson Tinney<\/a> (No. 42 overall), New York Mets&#8217; third-round choice <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/aiden-robbins\/15083\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15083\" target=\"_blank\">Aiden Robbins<\/a> (No. 92 overall) and Philadelphia Phillies&#8217; third-round selection <a href=\"https:\/\/texaslonghorns.com\/sports\/baseball\/roster\/ruger-riojas\/15062\" rel=\"smarttag nofollow noopener\" rev=\"15062\" target=\"_blank\">Ruger Riojas<\/a> (No. 100 overall).<\/p>\n<p>A 6-foot-3, 240-pound hard-throwing righty, Burns emerged as one of the top relievers nationally across his two seasons on The Forty Acres.<\/p>\n<p>Over 42 appearances in burnt orange, he registered a 3-2 record with eight saves and a 4.59 ERA. Burns totaled 83 punchouts in 49 innings, holding opposing hitters to a .183 average.<\/p>\n<p>In 2026, the Hortonville, Wis., native delivered the SEC&#8217;s best strikeout percentage (min. 20 inn.) at a 42.2 mark.<\/p>\n<p>With Burns anchoring Texas&#8217; bullpen, the Longhorns advanced to their NCAA-leading 39th appearance in the Men&#8217;s College World Series.<\/p>\n<p>Across his three-year collegiate career, he posted a 4-3 ledger with a 4.65 ERA over 79 1\/3 frames. Burns played his first season at Arizona State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Texas Longhorns junior Thomas Burns was selected in the eighth round (No. 227 overall) by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-370812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}