In Game 3 of 162, the Brewers Really Need Length from Their Starter

It's hard to remember a contending team this century who stumbled into the regular season in rougher pitching shape than these Milwaukee Brewers are in. A mere few weeks ago, it was hard not to feel good about all the depth they had accrued for their pitching staff, headlined by offseason acquisitions Nestor Cortes, Jose Quintana and Tyler Alexander. They snatched up Quintana so late in the spring that they knew they would need to get by without him for the first two turns of the rotation, but with Cortes, Freddy Peralta, Tobias Myers, Aaron Civale, and Alexander, they figured to be able to cover for him easily enough. By then, of course, they'd already lost Aaron Ashby and DL Hall, after coming to camp knowing full well that Brandon Woodruff would begin the season on the injured list. If bad things come in threes, the Crew had every right to think they'd taken their turns and lived through them.

As it turns out, the injury gods didn't agree to count Woodruff, since he was hurt way back in 2023. Instead, they poked their Myers voodoo doll and shelved Pat Murphy's second-best starter with a late oblique strain. Nick Mears was sidelined with such a vicious stomach virus that he, too, was forced to begin the season on the shelf, and (running out of options) the team elected to carry Abner Uribe, even though the slender righthander would have to serve a four-game suspension stemming from last year's fracas with the Rays before becoming eligible to help them out.

Suddenly, they began the season with only Peralta, Cortes and Civale as sure-footed starters, and then Cortes (and would-be innings sponges Connor Thomas and Elvis Peguero) got knocked out of the box by the Yankees in the second game of the season. Now, Murphy has to hand Civale the ball and hope his third starter can limit damage enough to give him five or more innings. If he can't, the Crew could be in danger—not only of being swept to start the season, but of having this problem spiral into something worse over the ensuing week.

Alexander could yet start Monday's home opener in Milwaukee, having thrown only 16 pitches Thursday in relief of Peralta. In order to make that appearance, though, he'll have to be withheld Sunday. Thomas, Peguero and rookie Chad Patrick are all likely to be unavailable, in the wake of their fairly heavy workloads Saturday. (Only Patrick threw fewer than 25 pitches, but he's been preparing to be a starter and it would be a big risk to ask him to pitch on consecutive days, even in short relief.)

That leaves the core of the bullpen available, thanks to the way Saturday got out of hand early and the inning Jake Bauers absorbed to close it out. Trevor Megill, Bryan Hudson, Joel Payamps, and Jared Koenig will be ready, and Elvin Rodriguez can give the skipper length if needed. Only those five pitchers will be called upon in relief of Civale, though, and it's a decent bet that Murphy will try to hold at least one of the main four back, knowing he's likely to need several arms to grind through Monday's contest. Ideally, even Rodriguez would be held in reserve, to act as a piggyback starter with Alexander.

All of this points to the obvious need for Civale to be efficient, sharp, and selfless. Even if the Bronx Bombers continue to live up to their names (they've swatted 11 homers in 16 offensive innings so far), Civale will have to try to stay on the mound and keep his team in the game. A recent study by Lewie Pollis found that each inning the starting pitcher works improves his team's reliever ERA by 0.07 the following day. You can safely treble that number in this case. If Civale gives the Crew 5 2/3 instead of 4 innings Sunday, it could be worth a third of a run tomorrow, and almost the same amount the day after that—because even as Uribe's suspension ends, the team will need to figure out how to patch together another 27 outs. Peralta isn't expected to start again until Wednesday, leaving the second game of the series with the Royals very much in flux, too.

This is a once-in-a-decade confluence of bad luck, tough circumstances, and a few costly mistakes. The Brewers are hemmed in by the rules around optioning players and the timelines on which they can be called up, at this early juncture. They're constrained not only by Uribe's suspension, but by Thomas being a Rule 5 Draft pick who can't be optioned to the minors, and by having waited too long to sign Quintana, leaving them without his services for the first fortnight of the season. In the top of the second of Saturday's ugly rout, before it got truly miserable, the Brewers showed the resiliency and dynamism that were their calling cards last year. They have all that, plus ample talent. They still have to survive the early going to make it matter, though, and at this moment, that proposition seems almost impossibly perilous, given how little baseball they've played so far.