Pitching rotation during the 18 games in 17 days stretch

[formerlybis]

Some off-day guessing about how to manage this stretch:

6/26 - 6/28 CHC: Miz, Harrison, Woodruff. The article about this weekend's probables says that Gasser is available for some innings before rejoining the rotation in the Cincy series, which is ... confusing if they're really doing a 5-man rotation. More logically, they'd move one of Sproat/Drohan/Gasser to long relief and out of the rotation.

6/29-7/2 CIN: Guessing Sproat, Drohan, (Gasser?), Miz. I've already blown the 5-man rotation here, but I'd also guess that Drohan gets moved to long relief in the next series.

7/3-5 @ARI: Harrison, Woodruff, Sproat - or Henderson? If Henderson does come up (and this would be on the early side), I would think Sproat or Drohan go down. If it's Sproat, let him pitch this one and then go down

7/6, 7/7 x2, 7/8, and 7/9 @ STL: Gasser (possibly Henderson pushes in here, which moves everyone back a day) on the 6th and Miz for one of the games on the 7th. The other game? Yeah, too early to tell what the situation will be and who they call up - maybe Crow. The last two might be Harrison and Woodruff, each on 4 days rest.

7/10-12 @PIT If Miz does pitch on the 7th, then Sunday the 12th would be his spot - not ideal if he's going to throw an inning at the ASG. If you go back to the Cincy series and throw him in game 3, then he could go on game one of the Cards series and Saturday of this series

[markedman5]

Doesn’t seem likely to me that they will send Sproat down…….they seem pretty committed to developing him up here. 
 

If/when Henderson is ready I would assume Gasser goes back down but we have some time before that decision has to be made.

[formerlybis]

3 minutes ago, markedman5 said:

Doesn’t seem likely to me that they will send Sproat down…….they seem pretty committed to developing him up here. 
 

If/when Henderson is ready I would assume Gasser goes back down but we have some time before that decision has to be made.

That's probably just me favoring Gasser as he seems the more "established" at the big-league level. I was surprised the Brewers weren't using him as the starter on Sunday. It's not a clear-cut decision about who should be the 5th starter.

[patrickgpe]

Well they have 7 now. I would assume Drohan goes to the pen / Nashville and the Brewers will have a 6 man rotation for the time being. Once Henderson is ready, i have no idea what they will do. Nobody out of the 6 deserves to be taken out of the rotation presently. 

[cragi]

if the Brewers were willing to stick out with a younger Sproat as a starter through the roughest part of his starts, what makes anyone think they would bail on him while he's now been stacking some quality starts? and even if they did remove him from the rotation, he would still be a valuable long reliever.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Sproat isn't going anywhere after his last start - having piggyback options and 6 man rotation options through this stretch to get to the AS break makes alot of sense now that Woodruff is back.  I'd assume Koenig gets activated tonight, too - which adds another high leverage reliever to the mix.

With this stretch, I think you send Perkins back down and add the extra pitcher in Koenig to the roster.

[cragi]

4 minutes ago, Fear The Chorizo said:

With this stretch, I think you send Perkins back down and add the extra pitcher in Koenig to the roster.

13 pitcher max

[formerlybis]

1 hour ago, cragi said:

13 pitcher max

 

2 hours ago, patrickgpe said:

Well they have 7 now. I would assume Drohan goes to the pen / Nashville and the Brewers will have a 6 man rotation for the time being. Once Henderson is ready, i have no idea what they will do. Nobody out of the 6 deserves to be taken out of the rotation presently. 

The issue with the 6-man rotation is the 7-man bullpen - we've got Patrick, Ashby, Anderson, Koenig, Uribe, and Megill as 6 of them. One of Gasser/Sproat/Drohan has to join them now, or two of them if they truly are going to 5-man. And one of them has to go to AAA when Henderson returns.

[jay87shot]

6 man rotation Misi, Harrison, Woodruff, Sproat, Gasser, Drohan. If Henderson comes back through him in for Drohan or Gasser and maybe you can do a bullpen day somewhere. We should be fine, they may needed to shuffle pitchers between AAA and the bigs a little more if the pen gets overused.

[BruisedCrew]

I saw the item about Gasser being available in the bullpen for this series before joining the rotation in the Reds series.

I thought Murphy had said previously that they would be going to a 5 man rotation. One way to reconcile the two statements would be to have Gasser start on Tuesday but be available for relief if needed early in the weekend. That would leave Sproat, Gasser, Mis, and Harrison for the Reds with Drohan taking over for Gasser as the bullpen option. That would set Mis, Harrison, Woodruff, Sproat and Gasser as the 5 man rotation until Henderson returns. 

[markedman5]

 

[formerlybis]

Well, we really could use Henderson now, particularly for Thursday. Drohan, Miz/Gasser (presumably), Harrison go the first four. Then we have Sproat/Drohan/Miz for PGH. 
 

if Henderson isn’t quite ready - and his rehab start was encouraging from a health standpoint, but sorta average from an effectiveness POV - then I really don’t know what they do. Crow is less ready than Henderson. Stallings is an option, but they’re going to need him in the pen in the first 4 of the Cardinals series.

 

ETA: I just read that Murphy said Henderson's next start would be with the big club, I would guess Stallings or Rom goes down after Wednesday to make room, so use those guys up,,,

Edited Monday at 01:05 PM by formerlybis
Updated info

[liveforoctober]

1 hour ago, formerlybis said:

Well, we really could use Henderson now, particularly for Thursday. Drohan, Miz/Gasser (presumably), Harrison go the first four. Then we have Sproat/Drohan/Miz for PGH. 
 

if Henderson isn’t quite ready - and his rehab start was encouraging from a health standpoint, but sorta average from an effectiveness POV - then I really don’t know what they do. Crow is less ready than Henderson. Stallings is an option, but they’re going to need him in the pen in the first 4 of the Cardinals series.

Both Henderson and Crow threw on Saturday so they are both lined up to be on 4 day's rest for Thursday. I don't think either will be expected to get you through 6+ but Henderson threw 68 pitches and Crow threw 53... So both should be fine to eat up the first 1/3 of the game at minimum. Piggy back Patrick and we should be ok.

[formerlybis]

3 minutes ago, liveforoctober said:

Both Henderson and Crow threw on Saturday so they are both lined up to be on 4 day's rest for Thursday. I don't think either will be expected to get you through 6+ but Henderson threw 68 pitches and Crow threw 53... So both should be fine to eat up the first 1/3 of the game at minimum. Piggy back Patrick and we should be ok.

Henderson is now the likely starter, but the piggyback option is dependent on how the Brewers' bullpen looks after the first four games. Patrick (& Ashby) will almost certainly be used at some point in the doubleheader on Tuesday. If we use either of them on Wednesday, too (and maybe even if they don't), the piggyback option with an A-lister is a bit dicey. Stallings, Rom, and Anderson need to go to work over this next series. It'd be a big help if the starters could all get through 6. 

[rickh150]

Almost just want Henderson to wait until after All Star break to start a game for us....bullpen it a game or 2.

[formerlybis]

21 minutes ago, rickh150 said:

Almost just want Henderson to wait until after All Star break to start a game for us....bullpen it a game or 2.

Pragmatically, with 8 games in 7 days, that's probably not gonna happen, The bullpen's gonna be overtaxed as it is. I do understand the sentiment, though. 

[sveumrules]

Over the last twelve days / thirteen games Brewers pitchers have thrown 119 IP (eleven more than any other team) with a 68 ERA- (2nd) and 87 FIP- (8th).

Rotation with 69.1 IP (1st) of 74 ERA- | 88 FIP- (both 7th) while the bullpen has chipped in 49.2 IP (3rd) of 60 ERA- (4th) and 87 FIP- (7th).

All told, the whole staff has stepped up to an MLB best 3.1 rWAR | 2.5 fWAR | +2.51 WPA to start this stretch.

Batters have hit for a strong overall 114 wRC+ but only scored 4.62 R/G on account of the RISP struggles with 155 PA (1st) of 83 wRC+ (28th) shaking out to only 42 runs scored (11th) in those situations.

To put those recent RISP struggles in context some, from the start of 2024 when Murphy took over thru June 24th of this year before this run of consecutive games the Brewers averaged 56 runs scored per 155 PA with RISP.

9 W - 4 L is impressive over any thirteen game stretch and I'll take it every time, but kinda crazy that they were just a couple well timed hits (that they've normally gotten over the last few years) away from 11  W - 2 L.

[TwinsBrewersWorldSeries]

On 7/6/2026 at 4:56 PM, formerlybis said:

Pragmatically, with 8 games in 7 days, that's probably not gonna happen, The bullpen's gonna be overtaxed as it is. I do understand the sentiment, though. 

After yesterday’s stellar starting pitching, maybe this has become more viable.

would sure love to give Miz a break now until after the AS break 

[tmwiese55]

I'd agree.  Would be a nice time to give him a two week break other than 1 inning in the ASG.

FYI, CBS currently lists Miz vs Skenes this Sunday.   I'm sure MLB would prefer if both of them took that day off.  With how mediocre Skenes has been lately it wouldn't surprise if Pit was looking at the same near two week break for him.  Of course they're a bit more desperate for Ws though

[Ron Robinsons Beard]

16 minutes ago, tmwiese55 said:

I'd agree.  Would be a nice time to give him a two week break other than 1 inning in the ASG.

FYI, CBS currently lists Miz vs Skenes this Sunday.   I'm sure MLB would prefer if both of them took that day off.  With how mediocre Skenes has been lately it wouldn't surprise if Pit was looking at the same near two week break for him.  Of course they're a bit more desperate for Ws though

Miz's All Star spot was already replaced yesterday. He'll be introduced, but that's it for his All Star participation.

[StearnsFTW]

If you add 15% to Misiorowski's 129 1/3 IP from last year you get 149 IP.

 

He's on pace for 192 + Post-season.

 

Does this bother anyone else?  Because it bothers me a lot.  See:  Horton, Cade.

 

[wiguy94]

19 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

If you add 15% to Misiorowski's 129 1/3 IP from last year you get 149 IP.

 

He's on pace for 192 + Post-season.

 

Does this bother anyone else?  Because it bothers me a lot.  See:  Horton, Cade.

 

I get it but Horton was also a guy with a pretty extensive injury history. Misiorowski to this point has had a clean bill of health. I think his only injury was a meniscus tear as a freshman in Juco. I don't think the Brewers are going to jeopardize Misiorowski's long term for the short term so if he gets up to like 180 IP this year, I'm going to trust the Brewers know what they are doing.

[sveumrules]

21 minutes ago, StearnsFTW said:

If you add 15% to Misiorowski's 129 1/3 IP from last year you get 149 IP.

 

He's on pace for 192 + Post-season.

 

Does this bother anyone else?  Because it bothers me a lot.  See:  Horton, Cade.

 

Not a huge difference, but Misio had 12 postseason IP last year too so 141.1 IP total.

That was after 71 IP in 2023, and 97 IP in 2024.

Would guess they’ll keep giving him extra days between starts as needed (has made three starts on four days rest, ten on five days, and four on six days so far) and scale back some down the stretch too to try and keep him as fresh as possible for the postseason.

[StearnsFTW]

27 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

I get it but Horton was also a guy with a pretty extensive injury history. Misiorowski to this point has had a clean bill of health. I think his only injury was a meniscus tear as a freshman in Juco. I don't think the Brewers are going to jeopardize Misiorowski's long term for the short term so if he gets up to like 180 IP this year, I'm going to trust the Brewers know what they are doing.

Yeah, Horton may have been a bad example for the reasons you cite, plus the fact that he pitched waaaaaay more innings percentage-wise than he did the year before.

I trust them as well, of course, but this whole 2-starts-before-the-break business makes me question it.  Talk about a perfect time to get him some rest.

At least he's not pitching in the ASG.

 

[StearnsFTW]

23 minutes ago, sveumrules said:

Not a huge difference, but Misio had 12 postseason IP last year too so 141.1 IP total.

That was after 71 IP in 2023, and 97 IP in 2024.

Would guess they’ll keep giving him extra days between starts as needed (has made three starts on four days rest, ten on five days, and four on six days so far) and scale back some down the stretch too to try and keep him as fresh as possible for the postseason.

Good point.  141.1 x 1.15 is 163 so better, but sheesh.

 

Hope it doesn't bite them.  If they have a big lead on 9/1 I'd come up with a 3 week injury, but as stated, I trust them.