Reds record in Chase Burns' starts proves there's an easy path to 2027 success

The Cincinnati Reds' Chase Burns management plan is here, and if his first innings-restricted outing is any indication, the young right-hander has plenty of gas left in the tank. On September 7, against the Los Angeles Dodgers, he looked extremely dominant, striking out five over three innings and allowing nothing more than just one walk.

What matters more in the grand scheme of things is what happened with Burns before the Reds broke out the kid gloves to preserve his future. Burns has a 15-3 record, which likely won't be added to thanks to the truncated nature of his appearances from here on out, and Cincinnati has gone 18-7 over his first 25 starts of the season.

Gone are the days when we used to use win-loss record as a means of evaluation for starters, and in general, that's a good thing. In this case, though, it's telling.

The reason we don't use it anymore is that it's very much a team-dependent stat. Good starters on bad teams often have poor win-loss records; just look at Paul Skenes winning the Cy Young Award last season with a 10-10 record on a putrid Pittsburgh Pirates team.

The Reds are not a good team in 2026. It shows through in the games that anyone not named Burns has started. Through August 30, the club was 46-65 when someone other than the 23-year-old flamethrower was on the bump.

That's both an impressive and discouraging development. It speaks to Burns' brilliance, but it also shows us how Cincinnati can improve in 2027 without making wholesale changes.

The Reds' astounding success in Chase Burns's starts proves this internal improvement can be a difference maker

It's true that the Reds are an offensively challenged team with a bad bullpen. Those are two factors that are going to make it hard to win games, regardless of how good the starters are.

Cincy's rotation ranks 27th in baseball with a 4.72 ERA as we enter the season's final stretch, and that's a number that would look even worse without Burns' 2.73 ERA in the mix.

As disappointing as that seems, there are reasons why things have gone so poorly with the unit. Remember, back in spring training, we were discussing the Reds' starters as being among the best in the league.

Fans thought that Hunter Greene would repeat what he did in 2024 and 2025, when he was a top-tier ace. They also thought that Nick Lodolo and Andrew Abbott would be front-end forces, while Brady Singer would be the stable innings eater out of the fourth or fifth spot. From there, fans hoped that Burns would develop into a quality starter sooner rather than later.

The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry. Greene got hurt in spring training, then again right after the trade deadline, and only made five starts. Lodolo's blister bugaboo resurfaced yet again and has prevented him from starting more than 18 games so far. Abbott and Singer got off to dreadful starts. The fill-in arms didn't get the job done.

But a closer look tells a bit of a different story. Abbott has been good every month with the exception of two: the first month of the season after missing time at the end of spring training with a blister of his own, and August, when he posted a 6.89 ERA. Otherwise, the numbers have ranged between a 1.61 mark and a 3.67 mark.

Lodolo hasn't been good this year, but he's had two lengthy IL stints and switched his curveball grip. That makes it hard to find a rhythm. The lanky lefty has had some good stretches this year, but the blowups sprinkled in have led to the 5.12 ERA. If the new breaking ball grip puts his blister issues to bed, there's reason to believe that he'll bounce back with consistency in 2027.

Cincinnati will be without Hunter Greene for all of next year, but Burns has already usurped him as the head of the rotation. There are plenty of reasons to believe Abbott and Lodolo will return to form, which would give the Reds a formidable trio. They'll need to figure out the back-end, whether that's reuniting with Singer, bringing back Nick Martinez, and/or relying on Rhett Lowder.

The seeds are there for the Reds to have a good rotation, and as Burns proved this year, with good starting pitching, they can win. The offense might not be as bad as it seems, with Hector Rodriguez seemingly joining Elly De La Cruz and Sal Stewart as the nucleus.

A couple of smart re-signings (Tyler Stephenson, Eugenio Suarez), and the team won't need to look outside for too many additions. Lastly, tweak a couple of pieces in the bullpen, and you don't have to squint too hard to see a return to contention.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow