Orioles shorten up Burnes ahead of next week’s Game 1 while another pitching concern emerges

The Orioles needed one more win at Yankee Stadium to clinch the top wild-card spot and had Corbin Burnes on the mound Thursday night.

The ace continued his dominant September by striking out nine New York hitters and allowing just two hits, one of them a Giancarlo Stanton home run in the second inning. The last three starts have showcased the best swing-and-miss stuff Burnes has had all season as he’s struck out 24 batters over his last 19 innings. He’s credited making some tweaks to his cutter as the reason he’s been able to miss more bats down the stretch.

So, why remove him after just five innings and 69 pitches in a 1-0 game?

The organization was focused on the big picture and a looming Game 1 start next Tuesday, which means Burnes will be pitching on four days’ rest as the Orioles presumably bump Zach Eflin to Game 2. That sounds like “normal” rest for Burnes until realizing it’ll be only the ninth time all season the right-hander has done that as the Orioles have mostly stayed on turn with their rotation even with off-days built into the schedule. Burnes has pitched on four days’ rest just three times since the All-Star break and last did it on Sept. 2, so you can understand not wanting to push him too hard with October looming.

Sure, Burnes could have thrown another inning and still finished with a lighter pitch count, but the Orioles were also going to need to score at least a couple runs to have a chance to win and were shut out until the ninth inning of the 10-1 loss that clinched the AL East division title for the Yankees. That brings us to a brutal bullpen performance as Yennier Cano, Cionel Perez, and Bryan Baker combined to allow six runs in the bottom of the sixth to turn a close game into a blowout.

It was the latest rocky outing for Cano, who hasn’t looked particularly sharp since dealing with some forearm tightness that sidelined him for more than a week earlier this month. Since returning to pitch a perfect inning that included two strikeouts in the Sept. 19 win over San Francisco, the 2023 All-Star right-hander hasn’t recorded a 1-2-3 frame in four appearances, allowing four earned runs, five hits and three walks over three innings.

For what it’s worth, the average velocity of his sinker has also decreased in each of those outings, going from 97.0 mph on Sept. 19 to 94.9 on Thursday. Cano getting good downward movement on the pitch is more important than its speed, but you wonder if the forearm is still a concern despite manager Brandon Hyde downplaying that possibility after the loss.

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“Not really. I think the confidence — we’ve got to get his confidence back,” Hyde told reporters at Yankee Stadium. “He’s a huge weapon for us. He’s had a couple rough ones, and we need to get him going going into the playoffs.”

This bullpen already has its share of questions, ranging from how effective Danny Coulombe and Jacob Webb will be after extended second-half absences to closer Seranthony Dominguez’s propensity for giving up the long ball. The Orioles can’t afford to have a diminished version of Cano — who pitched to a tidy 2.21 ERA from July 1 through Sept. 11 — if they want to make a deep postseason run.

You’d expect Cano to get a breather in Minnesota this weekend after his fifth appearance in eight days, but the Orioles will need him more than ever beginning Tuesday.