PHOENIX -- In order to become the best pitcher in baseball, Corbin Burnes had to start making his bed.
The mundanity of the task is not lost on Burnes. Every fifth day, when Burnes steps on the pitcher's mound for the Milwaukee Brewers, he revels in the excitement -- the opportunity to throw the most effective cutter since Mariano Rivera, the challenge of filling the scoreboard with zeroes. All that excitement is the payoff of tedium: meticulously following a script for the preceding 120 hours, including five crisply tugged comforters.
In September 2019, when Burnes was toiling in Triple-A after his ERA in the majors ballooned to 9.