After Taking Lumps in San Francisco, Brewers Have Clarity on Trade Deadline Needs

Just as a team will sometimes rest their starting catcher on the day before an off day, the Brewers chose an opportune moment to push back Shane Drohan in the team's starting rotation. Drohan will get two extra days between outings this way, after Milwaukee called up Thomas Pannone to make a spot start Wednesday. The team will have an off day in Los Angeles Thursday before starting a weekend series with the Angels in Anaheim on Friday, and the bump gives Drohan and all of the team's other starters some breathing room. This is the massaging of workloads they've talked about all year. This is the luxury afforded to a team on pace for 100 wins and an easy division title, even after an ugly loss Wednesday.

However, that loss did end up exposing some real cracks in the team's foundation for success. Pannone was serviceable, but Pat Murphy treated the outing more like the first phase of a bullpen game than like a true spot start, pulling the peripatetic lefty after just 56 pitches and three innings of three-run ball. At Triple-A Nashville, Pannone had made eight straight appearances with at least 80 pitches thrown and had gotten at least 16 outs in the last four. He was working on seven days' rest. Though the game might have gotten away from Milwaukee in the middle innings if Pannone had been left in a while, that option was available. Murphy, with his steadfast belief in trying to win every game, eschewed it.

That meant calling upon Chad Patrick to pitch the fourth and fifth, and to start the sixth. He survived the first two of those frames without allowing a run, and the Brewers chipped away at the Giants' lead in the meantime. When the bottom of the sixth began, it was 3-2 in favor of the home side. Patrick, however, wasn't fooling San Francisco at all. The Giants only swung at 18 of his 47 pitches, and didn't whiff even once in those 18 tries. Patrick has been working through mechanical issues lately, and he's not the same weapon the team often enjoyed when he was assigned to the bullpen late last year. In the sixth, he ran out of ways to gut it out, and left without getting an out.

Trying to throw a hat on a firehose, Murphy turned to Aaron Ashby, Somewhat like Patrick, Ashby is showing signs of wearing and buckling under heavy use recently, and Wednesday became the latest and most glaring example. Ashby faced six batters, threw 24 pitches, recorded one out, and left the game in the care of Bryse Wilson—a sure sign that the horses were out of the barn.

Uncharacteristically sloppy defense behind them hurt the Brewers hurlers, but the day was a reminder that the team has real needs to address before Monday's trade deadline, even if they're less urgent than those of some of their rivals. Another starting pitcher would be a huge addition; it would obviate things like Wednesday's Pannone start. The team doesn't want to overexpose its young and inexperienced arms, but to shield them from overuse, they need to have good alternatives to whom to turn. The game also underscored the need for at least one reliever, to bolster a bullpen with similar problems to the starting staff's: a lot of guys nearing workload thresholds beyond which they're likely to become less effective.

It's easy to forget, because the team never plays quite as deep into October as fans would like, but the Brewers have extra taxes to pay the pitching gods because of the extra innings they must throw each fall. Their season goes anywhere from one to three weeks past the end of the regular campaign, which means a few extra miles on the odometer of any pitcher whom they keep around for multiple seasons and a few fewer days to rest before spring training rolls back around. Ashby and Patrick are in that situation; so are Abner Uribe and Jacob Misiorowski. Turnover is needed; so is reinforcement. The Brewers entered spring training with so much pitching depth it felt almost redundant, but they need to make multiple additions over the next four days to ensure that they won't peter out in the NLCS again this time. Ashby and Patrick can still be superb pitchers in the roles Murphy has carved out for them, but they need a bit of a break, just as Drohan and the other starters on the staff do. Unless and until more talent pours through the door, it's harder to find those breaks for the team's vital relievers.

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