Burns has two weapons, and batters have no hope

This story was excerpted from Mark Sheldon’s Reds Beat newsletter, with MLB.com's David Adler subbing in on this edition. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

You don't get to vote for pitchers on the All-Star Ballot, but if you did, Chase Burns would be a shoo-in.

The way he's pitching right now, Burns is rolling toward his first career All-Star Game. A 7-1 record, 2.05 ERA and 81 strikeouts in 70 1/3 innings will do that for you.

About a month ago, we broke down how Burns dominates even though he's basically a two-pitch pitcher. His fastball and his slider are just that good. Now that it's All-Star season, we want to do a quick follow-up. We're not going to repeat ourselves too much -- Burns' fastball and slider are still electric -- but we want to show you just how he's using them to wipe out hitters.

Basically, Burns is a north-south king. He works high, he works low, and there's not a whole lot in between. Heck, he'd tell you so himself.

Take a look at where Burns locates his fastball and his slider. The blueprint is as simple as his pitch mix: heaters up, sliders down.

Over 60% of Burns' pitches this season have been either high pitches -- located at the top edge of the strike zone or higher -- or low pitches -- located at the bottom edge of the strike zone or lower. He's one of only two starting pitchers to go either high or low so often.

SP who throw the highest % of pitches either high or low
Of 146 starters with at least 500 total pitches

1. Grant Holmes (Braves): 61.4%
2. Chase Burns (Reds): 61.2%
3. Kyle Bradish (Orioles): 58.8%
4. Spencer Strider (Braves): 58.6%
5. (tie) Zac Gallen (D-backs): 58.3%
5. (tie) Matthew Liberatore (Cardinals): 58.3%
5. (tie) Landen Roupp (Giants): 58.3%

Burns sharing the top five with Strider is fitting -- Strider broke out with the Braves as the same type of two-pitch power pitcher that Burns is now, with his own explosive rising fastball/wipeout slider combo. Gallen is another famously north-south pitcher, but sub in knuckle-curves as his main breaking ball. And if you go just outside the top five, you also find Trey Yesavage, the Blue Jays’ phenom who's burst onto the scene with the same up-and-down approach, just with a splitter as his best secondary.

Burns fits right in with these guys. Because his fastball is 1) so fast and 2) gets so much rising movement (that's in our story on him from April), he can let it rip up high. Those elevated fastballs set up his nasty slider down low, which is how Burns gets most of his strikeouts.

Hitters see all those upper-90s fastballs at their eyes and they have to be ready to hit the high heat. Then, they can't lay off the slider that breaks down and out of the zone.

Burns has racked up 45 strikeouts this season just on sliders at the bottom the edge of the strike zone or below. When he gets that slider down -- and he does, basically all the time -- it's one of the best strikeout pitches in all of baseball.

Pitches that get the most K's at the bottom of the zone or below

1. Cristopher Sánchez's changeup: 55 K's
2. Chase Burns' slider: 45 K's
3. Chris Sale's slider: 38 K's
4. Jacob deGrom's slider: 32 K's
5. (tie) Max Meyer's sweeper: 30 K's
5. (tie) Grant Holmes' slider: 30 K's

Burns' slider is sandwiched between the nastiest pitches thrown by the 2026 NL Cy Young favorite, Sánchez, and two former Cy Young winners, Sale and deGrom. That's a good place to be.

Burns' north-south approach helps augment his electric stuff and make his fastball and slider one of the most valuable pitch combos in baseball, right up there with other dominant fastball-slider pitchers like Sale or deGrom or Jacob Misiorowski. It's an All-Star pitch mix.