Robert Gasser, Cooper Pratt, and Pat Murphy's Enforcement of Standards

Cooper Pratt's benching was the central story of the Brewers' series-opening loss in New York on Tuesday night, but Robert Gasser received similar treatment in his last start. Last Thursday against the Mariners, Murphy pulled Gasser mid-count in the fourth inning after he fell behind 2-0 to Randy Arozarena. Staked to a 6-0 lead after the first, Gasser sprayed the ball around in an inefficient outing, walking four and hitting one. That doesn't fly with Murphy. He had seen enough.

It was the latest frustration in an odd season for Gasser. His 4.59 ERA, 4.45 FIP, and 4.11 SIERA are all below average. Gasser's command has mostly been poor since he underwent Tommy John surgery. Even in some of his better outings of limiting runs and missing barrels, many of his pitches have been near the middle of the plate or non-competitive misses. He's hit eight batters, but his walk rate is a solid 7%.

Even after finishing a stretch of 17 games in 17 days, the Brewers are using six starters to maximize rest for their young pitchers, but two straight weeks with an off day forced them to get creative to avoid too many days between starts. Last Tuesday, they used Shane Drohan for two innings of relief behind Kyle Harrison, then started Drohan on Sunday to keep Harrison on six days between starts. This week, it was Gasser skipping a start to keep the rotation on a reasonable schedule, so he was likely to come out of the bullpen on Wednesday night as a bridge appearance. Instead, he essentially made a full start, after a comebacker struck Dustin May and ended his outing after one pitch.

Thrust into emergency long relief, Gasser delivered one of his best outings of the season, both in terms of process and results. He threw a first-pitch strike to 17 of 24 hitters and tossed 57% of his pitches in the strike zone. Gasser limited the Mets to just two hard-hit balls and generated whiffs on 26% of swings. He covered 5 ⅓ innings while allowing just one run, saving the bullpen and helping to turn a potential disaster into a smooth 8-1 win.

Pratt, meanwhile, returned to the starting lineup after Murphy benched him for a perceived lack of hustle and other small mistakes. In reality, Pratt took a second to get out of the box after getting jammed high and inside. Once he found the ball, he ran to first. His bloop near the right-field line was in the air for a while, but he was never reaching second base against Carson Benge's elite throwing arm. Murphy later admitted, after watching a replay, that Pratt ran harder than he thought in the moment.

Say what you want about the lesson Murphy was trying to teach and how he taught it. Regardless, Pratt said all of the right things to the media, and like Gasser, he bounced back on Wednesday. He legged out infield singles for both of his hits.

At times, it feels like Murphy has unnecessarily fallen back on his college coaching experience to impose amateur-level discipline on grown professionals (though the 22-year-old Pratt is still college-aged). Most managers don't do this, for good reason. It can be embarrassing and patronizing, making players feel disrespected and damaging their trust in the manager. If not handled correctly, benching at the big-league level can create more issues than it solves.

It's hard to say whether Murphy's benchings work. Maybe Gasser and Pratt would have performed well even without being reprimanded. But the bottom line is that they haven't created new problems. Furthermore, compared to his in-game strategy and questionable workload management, it's much harder to criticize Murphy's feel for managing people and intangibles. It's arguably his greatest strength as a leader.

With limited bullpen depth on the 40-man roster and innings concerns in the rotation, the Brewers need quality innings from Gasser. They also need Pratt to be fundamentally sound. As a team, they must play to a high standard. Murphy has his method of enforcing that standard, and he's shown several times that he won't back down from it. Regardless of how they got there, Wednesday night was what he and the team wanted and needed.

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