LOS ANGELES -- Pitching under the bright lights of Dodger Stadium usually demands a starter to work deep into the night, but Chase Burns’ first career start at Chavez Ravine came with a very different mandate.
With Cincinnati aiming to preserve its 23-year-old centerpiece for the long haul, the Reds officially unveiled their late-season strategy of dialing back Burns’ workload during Monday’s 6-3 loss to the Dodgers.
Manager Terry Francona confirmed that all of Burns’ remaining starts this season will be curtailed early, pairing their breakout star with left-hander Brandon Williamson in a piggyback arrangement. By utilizing Williamson in tandem behind him, the club is attempting to thread a tight needle: protecting Burns’ explosive arm without sacrificing vital wins down the stretch and without pulling the plug on his sophomore campaign entirely.
"It's hard to take him out. That's not a fun thing, but it's the right thing," Francona said. "And I know he understands, but he was good. And I give him credit, too, because he approached it the right way. He just approached it like it was a regular game. And I told him, 'We'll get you out. Just pitch like you pitch.'"
Before Burns even stepped to the mound, Elly De La Cruz gave Cincinnati a 1-0 lead with a home run in the top of the first inning off Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan. With the narrow edge in hand, Burns made quick work of Los Angeles’ lineup across a dominant 44-pitch outing.
In the bottom of the first, he needed just 10 pitches to work through Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Tommy Edman, relying on a four-seam fastball that topped out at 99.3 mph. He returned in the second to work around a leadoff walk to Max Muncy, picking up his first two strikeouts on overhand sliders to Teoscar Hernández and Hunter Feduccia.
Working with a full week of rest, Burns saved his sharpest sequence for the third, striking out the side in order against Alex Call, Alex Freeland and Ohtani -- who was returning to the Dodgers' lineup for the first time in four days. Every strikeout on Burns’ night was put away on his sharp slider, culminating in a 91.5 mph breaker low in the zone to Ohtani that capped a flawless frame.
"It's kind of my bread and butter," Burns said of his slider. "I feel like every time I go out there, it's working and it tunnels so well with the fastball. Fastball [had] pretty good velocity, so I felt like the slider had some bite to it. It was just a good pitch to get some swing-and-miss going."
Burns finished his evening with three hitless innings, issuing one walk while striking out five. But despite having his best stuff working, the predetermined pitch limit forced him to step aside mid-groove -- a compromise Burns fully understands, even if the competitor in him wanted to keep pitching.
"Going three, yeah, it's tough, especially when you're feeling great," Burns said. "I threw a lot of good changeups, a good sinker, and felt like everything was just working. It sucks, but I'm fired up for people to piggyback off the game and keep going."
The brief outing brought Burns to 148 1/3 innings across 27 starts on the season -- a mark that drops his overall ERA to a sparkling 2.73 while pushing his strikeout total to 176. That workload represents a massive step up from his first professional season in 2025, when he logged 109 1/3 total innings combined between the Major Leagues and Minor Leagues.
Once Williamson came in, he held the line with a scoreless fourth, but the fifth inning brought the game's pivotal shift.
A tough short-hop grounder from Miguel Rojas resulted in a rushed throw from Ke'Bryan Hayes on a fast-developing play, allowing two unearned runs to score and giving Los Angeles a 2-1 lead.
"It was a tough play, a real tough play, both ways," Francona said of the error. "He had to rush, got a short hop to [first baseman] Sal [Stewart] ... and it goes into no man's land. Héctor [Rodríguez] did a really good job of getting there, but he overran it. So we missed our chance for the last run."
A solo home run from Eugenio Suárez in the seventh and a Dane Myers RBI groundout in the eighth did little to shift the narrative. But despite the loss, Cincinnati’s focus remains squarely on the bigger picture: protecting its rotation anchor while establishing a formula for long-term health.