The night after Lance McCullers Jr out-dueled Paul Skenes, the Astros faced an unknown 25-year old right-hander, making just his third Major League start.
Mike Burrows took the mound at PNC Park with an 8.64 ERA and proceeded to strikeout six over 5.1 scoreless innings without issuing a walk, on the way to a 3-0 Pirates win.
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On Friday, the Astros acquired Burrows in exchange for prospects Jacob Melton and Anderson Brito in a three-team deal that also included the Tampa Bay Rays, as the Astros try to solidify a rotation that is almost assured of losing an All-Star this winter.
Burrows, who entered 2025 as one of the Pirates top 10 prospects, finished 2025 with a 3.94 ERA and a strikeout rate slightly above average, over 96 innings while appearing in 23 games (19 starts). With six years of club control remaining, he will arrive in West Palm Beach in two months with a leg up for a rotation spot behind Hunter Brown and Cristian Javier.
Burrows was a reverse splits guy who featured above average fastball velocity (95.5 MPH) in his first real taste of big league action. Lefties finished with an OPS 100 points lower than righties thanks to a changeup that was tied for sixth best in run value (+9) among the 129 pitchers who threw at least 200 of them, per Baseball Savant.
Opposing hitters batted .147 against it with just four extra base hits and 43.1 percent whiff rate.
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Burrows also throws a slider to righties, which held hitters to a .203 average with a 28.8 percent whiff rate, and a curveball to lefties, but the pitch he must refine is his four-seam fastball.
Of the 152 pitchers to throw at least 500 four-seam fastballs in 2025, Burrows -6 run value was in the bottom 30, according to Savant. Opponents hit .326 with a .529 slugging percentage against it, with righties batting .321 with a .703 slugging percentage.
Burrows did throw a sinker to righties 10 percent of the time, and it’s likely the Astros elect to have him increase the usage of that pitch.
Between the big leagues and Triple-A, Burrows threw a career-high 128.1 innings in his first full season back from 2023 Tommy John Surgery, but he has eclipsed the 90-pitch mark on just three occasions since signing out of high school in 2018, and while the Astros have high expectations for Burrow, they should probably be tempered in the near term for someone with fewer than 100 Major League innings under his belt.