Corbin Burnes’ Opening Day outing proved that the Orioles got themselves an ace

Corbin Burnes turned in the most impressive Opening Day performance by an Orioles starter in decades.

Happy Opening Day, Birdland! That was lots of fun, wasn’t it? On Wednesday afternoon, the Orioles convincingly thrashed the Los Angeles Angels in a 11-3 Opening Day win.

A not-terribly-controversial Top 3 countdown of the most impressive things witnessed yesterday might look like this:

3. The national anthem. I’ve heard it a lot of times, but it turns out, 45,000 people shouting “O!” all together is pretty loud. (What resonance!)

2. Opposite-field hitting! Baltimore took a 2-1 lead on Jordan Westburg’s RBI single in the first, then added three more runs in a second inning that featured an Adley Rutschman two-run single, plus an oppo-field single by Ryan Mountcastle. Both Rutschman and Mountcastle had big blows the other way, including a Mountcastle warning track sac fly in the sixth.

And of course. . .

1. Corbin Burnes’ brilliant start. There’s no suspense here, how could there be? The defending AL East Champions took the field on Opening Day brimming with confidence and excitement for a “New Chapter” centered around new owner David Rubenstein—and somehow Corbin Burnes managed to top that.

In his team debut, the new Orioles ace delivered an astonishing effort: a six-inning, 11-strikeout performance in which he allowed just one hit (a solo home run to Mike Trout) and retired 18 of 19 Angels hitters faced.

“Couldn’t have asked for anything more than that,” said manager Brandon Hyde said. “Awesome, awesome performance.” Added first baseman Ryan Mountcastle: “That was unbelievable.”

In Orioles historical terms, it was. This was the club’s most convincing Opening Day victory since a 12-2 win over the Royals in 1980. Since 1954, only one O’s starter has recorded more strikeouts in an Opening Day start: Dave McNally, who dropped 13 to kick off the 1970 season. Burnes’ 11 K’s tied for second most with Mike Mussina (1998). And—thank STATS for this one—Burnes joins Hall of Famer Bob Gibson as the only pitchers to record 11-plus K’s, no walks and one run or fewer on Opening Day.

It wasn’t just the results, it was how he got them. Burnes recorded at least two strikeouts in five of his six innings. Ten of eleven K’s were of the swinging variety — six by curveball, two by cutter and two by slider. His stuff seemed in totally great shape. The fastball averaged 95 mph, about half a run faster than last year. The offspeed stuff was particularly devastating. The Burnes curveball had a 75% whiff rate on Thursday, the slider 57%.

It’s just one start, but compared to last season, Burnes relied a lot more on these offspeed pitches: on Thursday, he threw 20% sliders and 24% curveballs, a significant difference from 8.5% sliders and 17% curveballs last year. It’ll be worth watching to see if this is reflective of a new approach he’s working on with Orioles pitching coaches, e.g. to develop the slider (or maybe it’s a sweeper) in particular.

It didn’t need to be said, but it was good to hear that Burnes himself felt that this was “one of those days where everything lines up, that you’ve got everything working,” which allowed him and his battery mate, Adley Rutschman, to mess around with different approaches to hitters.

This showed, for instance, when Burnes faced Mike Trout in the fourth inning, after allowing a first-inning home run to him off a hanging slider. The second time, Burnes went cutter (low), cutter (high), cutter (96 mph, high and outside). The future Hall of Famer went down swinging.

It’s doubtful you could draw up a much better Opening Day performance, or first-time introduction to the city of Baltimore, than this one. Surely the front office didn’t expect even this on February 1, the day the Orioles swung the trade from the Milwaukee Brewers that brought the right-handed ace to Baltimore. We don’t know how long this marriage will last, but for now, it certainly feels like a match made in heaven.

Welcome back to baseball. It looks like it’s going to be a fun season of baseball in Baltimore.