In First Two Big-League Starts, Chad Patrick Has Given Brewers Exactly What They Needed

[Jack Stern]

It's been rough sailing for the Milwaukee pitching staff, but the rookie righthander has helped keep them afloat.

Image courtesy of © Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

For the second time in the Brewers’ first regular-season homestand, Chad Patrick set the tone in a bounce-back victory. Last Tuesday, Patrick led the team to its first victory in his first big-league start. On Sunday, he kept the Cincinnati Reds at bay into the sixth inning as Milwaukee took the series with an 8-2 win.

Patrick was optioned to minor-league camp in early March, but after a slew of injuries ravaged the starting rotation, he found himself on his first Opening Day roster and (shortly thereafter) making starts. His latest effort was especially encouraging on a day when Nestor Cortes hit the injured list, making Freddy Peralta the lone starter standing from the initial projected rotation.

“He’s stepping up for us, for sure,” said Brice Turang. “Which is great. We always need guys to do that.”

Most notably, the 26-year-old has looked comfortable on a big-league mound.

“You wouldn’t know that he just started his major-league career,” Pat Murphy said. “Very poised. Sensible with his stuff.”

“He’s very mature, and he knows what he does well,” said Eric Haase, who has caught both of Patrick’s starts after working with him in Nashville last year. “I think that’s the biggest thing.”

The right-hander’s strength is a cutter and four-seam fastball combination that he rode to a Triple-A pitching Triple Crown (and recognition as the International League Pitcher of the Year) last season. Those two offerings constituted two-thirds of his pitches thrown in 2024. It’s been even more extreme in these two starts, where 83% of his pitches have been cutters or four-seamers.

“Being able to go north and south with the heater, and then the cutter,” Patrick said of his game plan on Sunday. “The cutter’s always going to be there. Today, it played really well.”

“It’s just establishing the top of the zone more than anything,” Haase elaborated. “He throws a couple of strikes up there, and then the eyes start looking towards the top of the zone, which opens up the cutter down, the fastballs down. It’s just kind of playing with eye levels.”

Even if there was some thought of mixing eye levels, Patrick and Haase have so far lived overwhelmingly around the top of the zone.

The behavior of Patrick’s cutter allows him to thrive up there. The pitch has assumed a wide range of shapes, enabling it to play to all quadrants, but most often, it cuts and rides. He can spin it so that it defies gravity and “stays up” more than hitters expect of a cutter, an effect boosted by his three-quarters release. Patrick’s cutter currently boasts the fourth-highest induced vertical break of any qualified big-league cutter this year, and its -5.2° vertical approach angle is the seventh-flattest.

Name	Cutter iVB	Cutter HB	VAA
Kenley Jansen	18.2	-3.8	-5.3
Aaron Civale	14.5	-3.8	-5.9
Ryan Pepiot	14.3	-1.0	-5.2
Chad Patrick	12.7	-1.3	-5.2
Emmanuel Clase	12.3	-3.7	-5.3

Appearing on a list with Kenley Jansen and Emmanuel Clase should warrant some attention. While not an elite weapon like those cutters, Patrick’s is more versatile and unique than most.

Murphy noted that the rookie has plenty of room for improvement—he won’t get too far with his current 1.43 strikeout-to-walk ratio—but Patrick’s stuff has evaded the barrels of two big-league teams so far, and those productive starts could not have come at a better time for an ailing pitching staff.

“Just him gaining that confidence that he belongs and he can help us,” Murphy said. “That’s twice in this series and twice in this homestand. It’s kind of significant.”

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[Brian]

Yes he has been what we needed.  I just hope we don't do something stupid like dump him the minute a couple of the wounded/injured come back from there rehab stints.  That would be a huge injustice and ticks me off more than anything in the MLB.  I wish they would just add a roster spot for a pitcher to the 26 man rule with all the injuries now days. 

[Outlander]

He should stick around as long as he is performing, as noted he walks way too many. Has been a bit lucky but cautiously optimistic that he he can make some corrections and continue to succeed. Not a bad return for Abraham Toro.