Burnes at the back of rotation? Here's why

PHOENIX -- How did Corbin Burnes, who was signed by the Diamondbacks to a six-year, $210 million contract, go from being in contention to start Opening Day to the fifth spot in the rotation?

It was a perfect storm of a manager who was unfamiliar with just how routine-oriented his new ace is and a veteran pitcher convinced that his routine between starts is the very reason he earned that massive free agent deal.

Arizona manager Torey Lovullo struggled to decide whether to start Burnes or Zac Gallen on Opening Day and dragged out the decision until last Thursday. Because it was so late in camp at that point, the team could not adjust Burnes’ spring schedule to have him pitch on anything less than a week’s rest before the second game of the regular season.

Burnes told Lovullo that his preference would be to throw once more during the spring, which he will do in a camp game on Wednesday. Then the right-hander will start the fifth game of the season on just one extra day of rest.

“That was probably a technical error on my part,” Lovullo said. “I’ll take the responsibility for that. Corbin is a very routine-oriented player, and I had yet to understand that until recently. He’s got a process, and I respect that and I blame myself for not getting to know him.

“Corbin is that important to me and this organization that I wanted to listen to him. He made it loud and clear that through that partnership this is what was most important to him.”

Burnes developed a very intricate routine both on and off the field with his personal mental fitness coach, Brian Cain.

After Burnes’ career bottomed out in 2019, he started working with Cain and put together a detailed plan for success. From August 2019 until Spring Training began in 2020, Burnes wrote down what he did every hour of every day for Cain to see.

“The reason why I'm here today and the pitcher I am is because of those routines,” Burnes said. “And I brought that up [to the Arizona staff]. I said, ‘The reason I'm here, the reason you guys signed me, the reason you guys gave me this contract is because of this process and that routine. Is that something we want to change the first start of my D-backs tenure?’ And that was a pretty [resounding], ‘No.’ So this was the option we had.”

That’s why Burnes will start the first game of a three-game series against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on April 1.

Lovullo now understands how important the routine is to Burnes, and he will make sure the pitcher is involved in any discussion involving his schedule going forward.

There will naturally be scheduled off-days for the team that will push Burnes’ starts back a day, but he can accommodate that in his routine with notice.

“That’s part of the conversations that we'll have every five or six weeks,” Burnes said. “Whatever it is, when we kind of map things out. Obviously, the schedule’s out there. So it’s something that we can prepare for. Whether it's going to be normal rest or an extra day of rest that time through, I know kind of weeks in advance what it is. So I can kind of fit in my routine.”