Re-Tooled Brandon Woodruff Showed His Stuff in Long-Awaited Return

[Jack Stern]

Image courtesy of © Jim Rassol-Imagn Images

Brandon Woodruff's first big-league start in 652 days could not have gone much better. In his long-awaited return from shoulder surgery, the longest-tenured Brewer tossed six innings of one-run ball, allowing just two hits and striking out eight.

Without context, that line could've passed for a typical Woodruff start anywhere between 2019 and 2023. But this was the new Woodruff, and a sharp one at that. Yes, he faced a below-average Miami Marlins lineup, and he won't look as good in every future start, but Woodruff offered the first real taste of how he can (and will) go after hitters moving forward.

Unsurprisingly, Woodruff's velocity was not quite back to pre-surgery levels. It's unlikely to get there consistently this year. Still, both his four-seamer and two-seamer averaged north of 93 mph, starting in the low 90s but bumping up a tick as his outing progressed. He topped 95 mph four times.

The real takeaways, though, were Woodruff's new and improved movement profile and how he used it. A higher arm slot has slashed a couple of inches of arm-side movement from each of his two main fastballs, but those preexisting staples of his arsenal otherwise have largely the same shapes. Woodruff is complementing those offerings differently, though, with the new cutter and sweeping slider he first teased back in spring training.

Notice how the movement plot on the right is more balanced than the one on the left. Woodruff can still pitch hitters north-south with his four-seamer and curveball, as he has always done, but he now features more shapes for working east-west, which he did in many of his most impressive sequences on Sunday.

After using a steady diet of four-seamers his first time through the order, Woodruff masterfully mixed his new cutter and two-seamer to work both sides of the plate. In the third inning, he got ahead of Dane Myers with two cutters over the outer third, before punching him out with a boring two-seamer up and in.

The following inning, after getting a call on an inside two-seamer to put Agustín Ramírez behind 0-2, Woodruff deliberately threw a cutter away to set up a perfect back-door two-seamer that froze Miami's cleanup hitter for strike three.

Woodruff consistently executed to all four quadrants of the zone all afternoon, helping him rack up those eight strikeouts. The sweeper on which Heriberto Hernandez homered for the Marlins' lone run was one of his few true mistake pitches. Woodruff threw 53 of his 70 pitches for strikes. Statistically, it was the highest strike rate by a Brewers starter in any outing this year (excluding openers), and his command was arguably the best, as well.

Hitting spots also allowed that four-seamer to continue playing up for whiffs with less velocity. Most of the swinging strikes against it came just above the top of the zone.

This is not the same Woodruff who last pitched in a regular-season game on the same Miami mound nearly two years ago. He's diminished in some facets, the same in others, and arguably better in one. This iteration still has a seasoned feel for pitching, with more weapons to get hitters out. That doesn't mean it will always be smooth sailing; tempering expectations is still wiser than overinflating them. However, Sunday put to rest any lingering doubts over whether a healthy Woodruff could help the Brewers in the second half.

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[homer]

Awesome stuff, Jack

[gregmag]

Really excellent analysis, Jack, and especially interesting to read having followed your and Spencer‘s commentary on Woodruff’s rehab games.

“In the third inning, he got ahead of Dane Myers with two cutters over the outer third, before punching him out with a boring two-seamer up and in.”

I actually thought that two-seamer was pretty exciting.

I’ll see myself out.

[homer]

The fact that his velocity trended up as the game went along was a big positive to me. You'd think it'd be the other way around - he'd be amped up, full of adrenaline, throw hard and tire out but he only got stronger as he threw more. That bodes well, IMO.

[Team Canada]

3 hours ago, gregmag said:

I actually thought that two-seamer was pretty exciting.

That almost deserves a thumbs down.