Pirates RHP Mike Burrows returns from Tommy John surgery to beat Yankees for 1st MLB win

As Mike Burrows made his way from the bullpen to the mound, he couldn’t help but think of the long road it took for him to make his major league debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The 24-year-old right-handed pitcher, who grew up about two hours from The Bronx in Waterford, Conn., made sure to soak up his surroundings on Saturday afternoon at Yankee Stadium.

“I was just looking around, realizing that I’d come here to see games as a kid,” Burrows said on the SportsNet Pittsburgh postgame show. “To be running on the field instead of watching from the seats was a completely different feeling.”

When the Pirates added Burrows to their taxi squad for the final series of the season and recalled him before Saturday’s game to pitch piggyback with rookie phenom Paul Skenes, it marked the end of the former top 10 Pirates prospect’s long road to recovery from Tommy John surgery.

Not only did Burrows make his major league debut against the Yankees but he earned his first career victory in the 9-4 win, allowing one earned run on two hits, three walks and two strikeouts over 3 1/3 innings.

Skenes had pitched two perfect innings, including back-to-back strikeouts of MVP candidates Juan Soto and Aaron Judge in the first inning and Jazz Chisholm Jr. in the second. So Burrows had additional pressure in facing the American League East champions.

“Oh yeah, you want to keep the momentum,” said Burrows, a 2018 11th-round draft pick. “He went out there two perfect and I wanted just to keep that rolling and get the win.”

Burrows retired the first four batters he faced, recording his first career strikeout by getting Oswaldo Cabrera swinging at an 0-2 changeup in the third. Burrows walked Soto in the fourth then struck out Judge on a 2-2 fastball and Soto was thrown out at second base to end the inning.

If Burrows appeared calm and composed on the mound, it was by design. He locked in on veteran catcher Yasmani Grandal, who was wearing a bright gold chest protector and facemask, envisioned a tunnel and kept his concentration on throwing strikes.

“I just trusted him,” Burrows said. “I didn’t shake off a pitch. I was just going with whatever he put down. I just went with it.”

It was in a quiet moment before the fifth inning that Burrows peeked up into the stands and acknowledged his family and friends, who made the trip to Yankee Stadium and were cheering wildly for him.

The Yankees finally got their first hit when Chisholm hit a first-pitch curveball low and inside for a two-out home run to right field. Anthony Rizzo followed with a single, but Burrows got Cabrera to ground out to first. In the sixth, Burrows walked Jon Berti and Jasson Dominguez, then got Soto to line out to center before being replaced by David Bednar.

After missing all of the 2023 season, Burrows pitched twice in the Florida Complex League and in four games for Low-A Bradenton before his rehabilitation assignment shifted to Triple-A Indianapolis. He was 1-1 with a 4.06 ERA and 1.41 WHIP, 45 strikeouts and 15 walks in 37 2/3 innings over 10 appearances, including nine starts. He had 10 strikeouts in his final start in the minors Saturday at St. Paul.

“He did a great job,” Grandal said in an on-field postgame interview with SportsNet Pittsburgh. “I was very excited for him. I told him, no matter what happens today, it was a win-win situation for him when you think back to where he was a year ago.”

Burrows shrugged off the strikeouts of Cabrera and Judge, who leads the major leagues with 58 home runs and 144 RBIs, as “just like every other punchout but another stage, another level, different players.”

But Burrows allowed himself to enjoy every second of his debut.

“To be in Yankee Stadium, to get a win, to get a punchout, I hit a little bit of everything,” Burrows said. “That was awesome.”