Pirates homer twice off Corbin Burnes but 4-run 2nd inning boosts Brewers to win

The Pittsburgh Pirates knew they couldn’t count on Corbin Burnes to make many mistakes, given that the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander won the NL Cy Young Award last season.

For five innings, Burnes was nearly untouchable.

The Brewers took advantage of the Pirates’ mistakes in a four-run second inning and survived the two slip-ups by Burnes for a 5-2 win Tuesday night at American Family Field in Milwaukee.

Burnes (1-0) had 10 strikeouts without a walk but surrendered a pair of solo home runs in seven innings for the win. Pirates starter JT Brubaker (0-2) allowed two hits in five innings but both drove in a pair of runs.

“It’s a challenge, especially when you’re facing the reigning Cy Young award winner – and Burnes was on,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “It was a well-pitched game. You take away the second inning for ‘Bru,’ where he threw a bunch of pitches and had a couple walks and, other than that, you saw some really good pitching.”

Brubaker’s troubles started when he walked Andrew McCutchen to start the second inning, then gave up a 424-foot two-run home run to Rowdy Tellez as the Brewers took a 2-0 lead. With a 114.2-mph exit velocity, it was the hardest-hit ball by a Brewers player this season.

“The slider was supposed to be backdoor,” Brubaker said. “It slid it too far over the plate, right into his nitro zone and he took it yard.”

Brubaker retired the next two batters but shortstop Kevin Newman spun after fielding a Lorenzo Cain grounder up the middle and his throw pulled Yoshi Tsutsugo off first base. It was the second error this season for Newman, who made only three in 453 chances at short last year.

Brubaker walked Victor Caratini, and Kolten Wong followed with a broken-bat double down the right field line to score two more runs for a 4-0 Brewers lead.

Burnes, by contrast, was incredibly efficient in retiring the first nine of 10 batters he faced – five by strikeout, four by groundout – while throwing 29 of 40 pitches for strikes. Shelton pointed to Burnes’ execution of his cutter and fastball as the key.

“We’re talking about a guy that stays 93-94 9 (mph) with two pitches and is able to criss-cross them,” Shelton said. “That provides challenges. It’s obviously why he won a Cy Young Award last year.”

Burnes didn’t allow a run until the sixth inning, when Daniel Vogelbach blasted a 2-2 sinker 420 feet to straightaway center for his second home run of the season to cut it to 4-1.

When Josh VanMeter drove a 2-1 cutter 399 feet to left field in the seventh to make it 4-2, it marked the first two-homer game allowed by Burnes since he gave up three in two-thirds of an inning in relief in a 12-8 loss to the Atlanta Braves on May 17, 2019. VanMeter went 2 for 3, hitting a single in the fifth.

Roansy Contreras replaced Brubaker in the sixth, but gave up a leadoff homer to Hunter Renfroe in the seventh as the Brewers stretched their lead to 5-2. It was the only hit allowed by Contreras, who finished with five strikeouts and no walks in three innings.

“He did recover nicely,” Shelton said. “This kid continues to get better. He threw one bad pitch, hung a breaking ball and the guy hit it out of the ballpark. But if you continue to execute pitches like that, you’re going to get outs.”

Josh Hader pitched a 1-2-3 ninth to earn his fifth save but it was Burnes who left a lasting impression on the Pirates.

“Anytime you can throw 95-98 and make the ball go both ways, that makes it tough on hitters,” Vogelbach said. “That’s kind of what he does. He’s just one of those guys you’ve got to grind out from pitch one and try to make it as hard as possible.”