I've always found it interesting that A.J. Burnett's name is essentially two sentences crammed together, but more interesting is the fact that he returned from the DL to give the Pirates a line of 5.0 IP, 3 ER, 3 Hits, 2 BBs, 3 Ks. Now I really liked Burnett earlier in the season, but after those first two months, the whells came off, and Burnett has had a 4.43 ERA since May 28th with a poor 7.08 K/9. It only got worse the starts leading up to his injury, and this start doesn't inspire confidence that you should put him in your corner in the closing weeks. Look, Burnett is retiring at the end of the season and he clearly isn't going to hold anything back as he has nothing to save up for after this season. That means he'll most likely be pitching through a hurt arm and not at 100% for the rest of the year, even if the Pirates keep limiting his pitches like last night (64 total). It doesn't add up to inspiring hope that he'll be in top form like the start of the year and if I had a decent staff already with Burnett on my DL, I would just let the ole Pirate float off into the waiver sea.
Let’s see what every other SP did yesterday:
