Who Should the Brewers' Game 3 Playoff Starter Be?

The Milwaukee Brewers’ pitching staff has been lights-out all season long. Only the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers have allowed fewer runs than Milwaukee this year, and there’s arguably no better team in baseball at getting the most out of its pitching staff. Jacob Misiorowski has developed into the best arm in the league and will win the NL Cy Young Award. Logan Henderson has also broken out as a rookie, looking like another potential frontline starter for the Brew Crew. But after those two, things get a little more interesting.

It’s no secret that pitching wins games in the postseason, and with a 98-58 record, Milwaukee is in prime position to avoid the Wild Card round that begins next week. Whoever the Brewers face in the NLDS, Misiorowski will start Game 1, and Henderson will very likely take the ball in Game 2. The big question is what Milwaukee should do for Game 3.

For most of the regular season, left-hander Kyle Harrison seemed like the easy choice. Harrison looked like a difference-maker during the first half of the season, posting a 3.01 ERA while striking out more than five batters for every walk. Even when he hit the injured list in July, the hope was that it would be a routine maintenance issue and that he'd return to the top half of the rotation. Unfortunately, things have gone in the opposite direction. His ERA has ballooned to 7.85 in the second half, and his struggles have his playoff role very much up in the air. A pitcher who looked like an obvious Game 3 candidate a couple of months ago now has a lot to prove before Milwaukee can feel comfortable even putting him on the playoff roster.

Then there’s Dustin May. The Brewers acquired May from the Cardinals at the trade deadline alongside JoJo Romero, hoping he could provide some additional stability to their rotation. But there just hasn’t been a whole lot of consistency since he arrived in Milwaukee. He's made three quality starts since being acquired, which shows that there is still plenty of potential there. At the same time, he’s also had a handful of ugly outings that don’t leave you feeling overly confident about giving him the ball in a playoff game.

That leaves Robert Gasser. Gasser and Harrison are both left-handed, which could give either one a slight advantage, considering Misiorowski and Henderson are both righties. Unlike Harrison and May, Gasser is also closing September strongly. The left-hander has allowed two or fewer earned runs in each of his last five starts, giving him the best recent stretch of the three candidates.

That doesn’t mean Gasser has suddenly become a flawless option, though. Only one of those five starts lasted longer than 5 1/3 innings, and he's also issued a fair number of walks during that stretch. Those are both things Milwaukee will have to consider when deciding how much it can realistically expect from him in October. Still, of the three candidates, Gasser is the hot hand.

If it were up to me, the Brewers’ Game 3 starter would be Gasser. Harrison simply hasn’t earned that opportunity. If Pat Murphy wants to use a left-handed starter in Game 3, Gasser feels like the safer option at this point. May would get my vote for Game 4, although it’s also possible Murphy uses him more as a bulk reliever than a traditional starter once October arrives. With May’s inconsistency and Gasser’s recent success, there are plenty of ways Milwaukee could structure its pitching staff beyond the first two games of the series. That flexibility could end up being one of the Brewers’ biggest advantages.

Regardless of who winds up taking the ball in Game 3 of the NLDS, odds are good that the leash will be pretty short. Milwaukee has too many quality bullpen options to sit back and let a starter work through trouble simply because he was announced as the starter. After Misiorowski and Henderson set the tone at the top of the rotation, Murphy can lean heavily on that bullpen to navigate the later innings and shorten the game. But before the relievers take over, someone still has to take the ball in Game 3. That someone, barring a late change of some unforeseen kind, should be Gasser.

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