The Brewers Should Be in All Kinds of Pitching Trouble, But They Aren't

Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images

Brewers Video

By innings pitched, the top three hurlers for the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers were Freddy Peralta, Quinn Priester and Jose Quintana. The trio combined for 465 2/3 innings of work in the regular season, and another 25 during the team's two playoff series. That's just a hair shy of a third of the total workload borne by the whole pitching staff last year.

In Milwaukee, though, nothing is forever, and most things aren't even for that long. Over the offseason, Quintana left via free agency, and the club traded Peralta to the New York Mets. Priester is still in the organization, but thoracic outlet syndrome ended his season before it began. One passive departure, one proactive one, one by accident—that's how these things tend to go. However, replacing the only three pitchers who exceeded 130 innings is always difficult work for a team.

This year, of course, Jacob Misiorowski stepped forward to become the ace of the starting rotation. Three other pitchers stepped up early on, making bids to complement Misiorowski and replace the absent Peralta, Priester and Quintana: Kyle Harrison, Chad Patrick and Brandon Sproat. That group combined for 318 2/3 innings this season, concentrated mostly in the first half. In fact, they pitched 239 frames before the All-Star break (about 28% of the team's total), but fewer than 80 after it. None of the three has appeared in a postseason game. The Brewers have had to turn over a huge portion of their workload even in the last three months.

Into the gap left by the injuries and poor performances of Harrison and Sproat stepped Logan Henderson, who has become the real No. 2 behind Misiorowski. But there's another issue in play, when it comes to those two. Last year, at all levels and including the playoffs, Misiorowski pitched 141 1/3 innings. This season, that number is 183 frames and counting. Henderson pitched 103 innings last year; he's already at 131 1/3. The team's two most important starters are far beyond their previous career highs in innings pitched.

The above is to say nothing of plunging resources into the acquisition of Ángel Zerpa, only to have him need Tommy John surgery early in the season, or of Jared Koenig pitching through major elbow trouble and falling out of the mix. It's to say nothing of giving Brandon Woodruff $22.025 million and getting just 45 1/3 innings from him. On every front, the Brewers have faced adversity in patching together a pitching staff. They got through the regular season with the fourth-fewest runs allowed per game of any team in the league, and some of that was thanks to their defense, but another portion was thanks to the first-half boosts provided by Harrison and Woodruff. Between being reliant on pitchers who barely cracked the depth chart in the spring and the degradation in performance one often sees from pitchers like Misiorowski and Henderson as they stretch beyond their previous maximums, they really shouldn't be a top-tier run-prevention team at this point. They should be scrambling. They should be running out of steam.

Give the team credit. Down the stretch, with the luxury of a cushion in the standings, they were as careful as they could be, while still pressing to earn a first-round bye and home-field advantage. Misiorowski has made 31 starts this season, including his two postseason appearances. Of those, only four came on four days' rest, and one of those was a programmed, abbreviated September appearance to prepare him for the possibility of being needed on four days' rest in Games 1 and 5 of a best-of-seven series. Over half of Misiorowski's starts came on five days, and eight times, he's gone on six days. Pitching just once a week for significant stretches has slowed his accrual of innings and maximized his chances to recover and pace himself.

The same goes for Henderson. He's made 27 total starts, of which just 16 came on five days of rest or fewer. He's started on six days five times and on seven or more five times more, not counting his first rehab start after over a month on the injured list at midseason. Treating five days as regular rest and offering a sixth whenever possible has made it possible for Henderson and Misiorowski to stay ready for all the playoff duty asked of them, even if they've looked a bit off their game. The same treatment has kept Robert Gasser and Shane Drohan reasonably fresh.

Winning each of their first two series in four games has been huge, of course. It's allowed for more days off, and for the team's bullpen to soak up more of the innings the club does need to pitch. They don't have to improbably survive much longer. There are only (give or take) 60 more innings to cover. There are only seven more dates on the calendar, and three more days between now and the first one, and two off days in the set. The Brewers have cheated death. They lost the guys who threw 500 innings for them last year, and they've shelved the guys who gave them 320 this year. They're down to no more than 10 trustworthy arms, and on most nights, they'll try to get from Pitch No. 1 to Out No. 27 with five or fewer. That's no sweat. What the team put itself through and what the baseball gods have decided to put them through should have been fatal, or at least very damaging. Instead, they've only allowed 21 runs in eight playoff games. They just need four more wins. They shouldn't have had enough pitching to get here, but they have more than enough to make it the rest of the way.