Chase Burns reaches the next, next level

Over the last 50 seasons, six big league pitchers who are 23 years old or younger have finished a season with a 2.47 ERA or lower as well as 150+ strikeouts.

Those pitchers are Paul Skenes, José Fernández, Clayton Kershaw, Jake Peavy, Mark Prior and Dwight Gooden.

In 2026, 23-year-old Chase Burns has a 2.47 ERA and 151 strikeouts in his first full season in the big leagues. With exactly one quarter of the season left to go, Burns is on pace to join that exclusive list of pitchers.

“You know how real his stuff is,” Nick Lodolo said. “The impressive part is him still putting it together. Stuff and pitching are two different things. He’s doing both. He’s taking the ball every five days and bringing it.”

There have been multiple moments this year where Burns has leveled up. First, he showed that he was an exciting young pitcher. Then, he proved that he was a good young pitcher. Then, he graduated to All-Star status and earned a $105 million contract. Now, he has reached the point where you can start discussing his season as one of the best by a young pitcher in a long time. He’s on Cy Young shortlists already, and he’s fully on track to be one of the better pitchers in the league for a while.

“His stuff is so good that it makes our job easy,” Tyler Stephenson said. “It’s just so hard to hit him.”

Because Burns is so early in his career, the innings question looms down the stretch. He’s 131 innings into his season, well past the previous high for him over a full calendar year (109.333). But put that to side. Look at what he’s doing right now. He’s a 23-year-old who’s much deeper into a season than he has ever been, and he’s showing no signs of slowing down. It’s the dog days of the season, and Burns keeps pitching like an ace at a part of the calendar where a lot of young pitchers start to wear down.

On Friday, Burns threw seven shutout innings against a Miami Marlins’ offense that entered the day with the 10th-best OPS in all of MLB this year. Burns’ performance in a 1-0 win was another scrapbook moment in what’s becoming an unforgettable rookie season.

“Today, he was better than he has been in a while,” Terry Francona said. “He had a second wind. He looked pretty fresh to me today.”

The Marlins’ game plan was laying off of his slider. Burns adjusted quickly and filled up the zone with that pitch. He also leaned into a specific mindset on the mound on Friday.

“I was getting back to my roots,” Burns said. “I’m not a big in-and-out, up-and-down guy. I throw it down the middle and let it eat. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. I think it’s been working so far.”

From the first week of spring training, Burns looked like a pitcher who was capable of producing a season like this, at least one day if not right away. On Friday, watching Burns gave center fielder Dane Myers some flashbacks to February.

“He was the first guy I saw in spring training,” Myers said.

It was a memorable back-and-forth during a live batting practice session. Myers fouled off a few pitches in a two-strike count. Burns cursed under his breath, showing some obvious frustration even in a meaningless spring training workout. Burns responded by finishing Myers off with a strike three fastball, and the budding ace celebrated the strikeout with a few words to pump himself up.

“I had a pretty good idea he’d have the year he is now,” Myers says six months later. “I’ve got one of the better views now in center field. You can see the swings that guys take and how uncomfortable they look in the box.”

Burns was incredibly efficient on Friday, needing only 93 pitches to cover seven innings. He didn’t walk a single batter. The Marlins picked up four hits, and they’re a very challenging team to handle on the bases. Burns did that just fine as he held runners, another example of his maturity.

He struck out eight batters, and five of the eight took place between the fifth and seventh innings.

“You turn into your own reliever,” Burns said.

The Reds (five games out of a playoff spot) are still far back in the Wild Card race. But just looking at it hypothetically, he looks ready for the playoff stage. If the Reds were in a different position this season, or if they go on some incredible magical run to end the year, Burns would be the type of pitcher who you could have on the mound for Game 1 of a playoff series against any team and feel like you have a real shot (even last year, he looked incredible out of the bullpen as he threw 1 ⅔ shutout innings in Game 2 of the Wild Card round against the Dodgers).

He has what it takes.

“It’s just fun to watch him, talk to him and see how his mentality changes,” Brady Singer said. “He’s mature. He gets his work done every day. It’s really, really fun to watch the way he competes on the mound.”