PHOENIX — When the Arizona Diamondbacks signed Corbin Burnes to a franchise-record six-year, $210 million contract last winter, just a little more than they gave Zack Greinke in 2015, this is what they hoped they were buying.
Burnes didn’t quite pitch up to his Cy Young pedigree in April and received a cortisone injection for shoulder inflammation, skipping a start and taking a 10-day break before facing the Dodgers on Saturday.
The shot worked. Burnes handcuffed the Dodgers for seven scoreless innings and reliever Ryne Nelson finished off a combined five-hit shutout of the Dodgers as the Diamondbacks won 3-0.
“I think that he was going to bring his best tonight. We figured that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Velocity was up. He was just mixing. It’s a cutter. It’s a changeup in there. He was throwing his four-seam (fastball) and we really didn’t get a whole lot of good swings against him.”
Burnes let just six balls escape the infield in his seven innings, five of them singles that proved harmless. He struck out five and got 15 outs on the infield.
“(He was just) being Corbin Burnes. He’s one of the best pitchers in the game for a reason,” said Freddie Freeman, who went 0 for 4 to end his hitting streak at 14. “Cutter was 95-97 (mph), got good depth. Threw the curveball off of it. Changeup was working too. Just had everything going today.
“We were ready for him, and he was just really good today.”
The Dodgers had five hits and two walks off of Burnes and put runners in scoring position in the third, fourth and fifth innings. But they went 0 for 5 in those situations.
Hyeseong Kim was stranded at second in the third and then at third base in the fifth after a leadoff single. Kim’s speed bothered Burnes enough in the third that he balked him to second by making a third pickoff throw to first base – a disengagement violation that advanced Kim.
In the fifth, Kim led off with a single and got to third with two outs, but was stranded there.
The Dodgers got a one-out single from Andy Pages and a walk of Max Muncy to put two runners on with one out in the fourth. Burnes struck out Kike’ Hernandez and Michael Conforto to thwart that rally and retired nine of the final 10 batters he faced.
“Today he came out with his A stuff and I think you just got give credit to him tonight,” Roberts said.
Dodgers starter Dustin May gets credit for doing his part to make it a pitchers’ duel, pitching into the seventh inning for the first time since May 2023 (before his second elbow surgery and a life-threatening esophageal incident).
But he gave up two runs along the way. Speedy Corbin Carroll led off the third inning with a drive to deep center field that eluded Kim and went for a triple. Carroll scored on a ground out.
In the sixth, May left a first-pitch sinker over the inner half of the plate to Eugenio Suarez and he crushed it, launching it 455 feet into the second-level overlook in center field for a solo home run.
“I feel like I was working the sinker to both sides of the plate, and I had just two poorly executed sinkers, and they took advantage of it,” May said. “It’s the big leagues, and that’s what they do.”
After giving up 14 runs in 16 innings over his previous three starts, that represented a significant step forward for May.
“I thought Dustin was really good,” Roberts said. “I thought he was in a good rhythm, he was getting ahead in counts. He put guys away when he needed to. The sweeper was working. He worked to both sides of the plate.
“I think that after the big double play (in the sixth), he left a fastball out over to Suárez for the homer. But really outside of that, I thought he pitched really well.”
The Diamondbacks added an insurance run in the eighth inning on back-to-back doubles by Ketel Marte and Pavin Smith against Kirby Yates.
A night after scoring 14 runs, including six in the ninth inning, the Dodgers’ final six batters were retired in order by Diamondbacks reliever Ryne Nelson.
“Obviously they were looking for a guy, a workhorse, a staff ace, a guy that gets lefties out, gets righties out, can go deep into games,” Roberts said of the Diamondbacks’ signing of Burnes last winter. “That’s what they’re investing in and counting on. He did all of that tonight and we’re going to see him down the road, I’m sure, a lot.”