KANSAS CITY -- Corbin Burnes broke the ice, and now he’ll try to settle in and help the Diamondbacks reach the postseason over the final stretch of the regular season.
Coming off a long recovery process following Tommy John surgery, Burnes made his 2026 debut on Tuesday by delivering three scoreless innings against the Royals. In what wound up as a 5-3 Arizona victory in 11 innings, Burnes set the tone. The former Cy Young Award winner allowed two hits and two walks, but the Royals couldn’t cash in as Burnes ended his evening with a flourish by striking out Salvador Perez on a 93.5 mph cutter with a runner at second.
Burnes threw 57 pitches, 35 for strikes. Manager Torey Lovullo had targeted Burnes for 60-65 pitches prior to the game, but decided to go with Kade Strowd for the fourth after Burnes took care of Perez and finished on a high note.
Burnes had hoped to get through four innings in his return, but a 10-pitch at-bat against Vinnie Pasquantino in the third thwarted that goal.
After 464 days between starts, Burnes is back.
“Now we can stop talking about how long it has been and just get back to playing baseball,” Burnes said. “It was good. For the most part, we did what we wanted to do. Really, it was three at-bats that caused the pitch count to get up there. The two walks plus the 10-pitch at-bat to Vinny zapped that pitch count.”
On the 10th pitch, Pasquantino hit a drive to left-center that Tommy Troy failed to handle and the play went for the double and added to Burnes’ pitch count.
Burnes was pleased with his arsenal for the first outing and hopes to build on it as he makes more starts that could loom large as Arizona tries to reach the postseason.
“It was probably 50-50 on curveballs, good ones versus bad ones,” Burnes said. “It seemed like the two-strike curveballs were the bad ones. I threw a couple of decent sliders. A good one to build on.”
It has been a long road back to a big league mound for the 31-year-old Burnes. He’s 15 months removed from the Tommy John surgery, from which his recovery was set back by a strain of his right teres major muscle in June.
Burnes took the first big step in his recovery on Aug. 29 with a Minor League rehab start, and he threw upward of 50 pitches in a bridge league game and bullpen -- the equivalent of about four innings -- last Thursday.
"There were probably more nerves waking up this morning and getting to the ballpark,” Burnes said. “As soon as I got out on the field, it was like riding a bike.”
All in all, Lovullo felt Burnes’ first outing was on point.
“We did exactly what we wanted with Corb,” Lovullo said. “It was great to see him back out there. Huge congratulations to him and what he has done.”
Before Burnes took the mound, Lovullo had reflected Tuesday afternoon on the resilience and determination of the veteran right-hander.
“He got stalled out three and a half months ago and re-committed to the process,” Lovullo said. “He’s healthy. He feels strong. To be in the middle of a pennant race and you have Corbin Burnes to pencil into the lineup, that’s a manager’s dream.”
Making the evening even sweeter for Arizona was the manner in which the D-backs pulled out a second consecutive extra-inning win. The Royals were down to their final out in the ninth when John Rave launched a game-tying two-run homer.
But in the 11th, the D-backs took the lead for good on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.'s RBI triple and a sacrifice fly by Ketel Marte. Left-hander Blake Walston pitched an effective 11th to pick up the win.
“Giving up that two-run homer in the ninth was awful,” Lovullo said. “This game will rip your heart out. But they adjusted and got after it. That’s what I’m really proud of.”