With Brandon Woodruff's Return on Horizon, Brewers Option Tobias Myers to Triple-A Nashville

The Milwaukee Brewers optioned Tobias Myers to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds Sunday, and called up reliever Elvis Peguero in his stead. It's the latest sign of organizational frustration with Myers, who lasted just four innings in Saturday's loss to the Rays. Myers, 26, has made four starts this season, but worked even into the fifth inning just once. He's walked 10 (against only 11 strikeouts) in 75 batters faced.

Almost immediately upon his return from an oblique injury suffered in spring training, Myers came in for critiques from Murphy, who found his struggles with command so unacceptable that he pulled Myers after just two innings in his second appearance (against the unthreatening White Sox) and gave him an inning of low-leverage relief work before his next start. While the walks are less than ideal, to be sure, it's hard not to wonder if there's an underlying misalignment between player and team on some matter of gameplanning, approach, or preparation, because although Myers came back at a moment when the team's need for starters was dire, the leash has been short with him—first within games, and now, in terms of his place on the roster.

Freddy Peraltta, Jose Quintana and Chad Patrick all had fairly safe rotation spots. The surprise here is that, with Brandon Woodruff nearing a return at the head of what the team hopes will be a wave of injured hurlers coming back, it's Myers and not Quinn Priester who lost his place. Our @Jack Stern and @Spencer Michaelis speculated about this very possibility on the latest episode of the Brewer Fanatic Podcast, though, and whether it be solely because of performance or due to philosophical differences between the relevant parties, Myers is now ticketed back to the minors.

Another option would have been to move Myers to the big-league bullpen, and in the medium-term future, that might still be the plan. As a starter, Myers's stuff has played as average or worse this year.

In a shorter-outing relief role, he might gain a tick or two, and that stuff would play up significantly. He might also be able to streamline his arsenal, getting rid of or downplaying the cutter. It's unlikely the Brewers will readily give up on the chance of getting more starting work from him, but it's certainly more plausible than it was even a few weeks ago. Firstly, there's the fact of Myers's failures as a starter this year, but there's also the fact that Woodruff, Aaron Ashby and DL Hall are at various stages of the active rehab process. Furthermore, Jacob Misiorowski seems to have had some degree of epiphany at Nashville, and could be in line for an imminent promotion of his own.

Peguero, meanwhile, comes back to the majors after five straight scoreless appearances for the Sounds. He has his own control issues, at times, but that's more viable for a short-burst relief arm, and he's ready for his next taste of the majors. The Brewers' bullpen is far from its most perfect or dominant form of the last few years, but it remains a deep and effective unit. Peguero becomes the latest brace for it, though someone will need to be swapped out again when next Myers's turn in the rotation comes up. That could be when Woodruff returns, though it's more likely that they'll use the day off Thursday to push Woodruff's spot back to the week of May 19. In the meantime, they could operate with a nine-man relief corps.

Myers still has a chance to surge back into the team's rotation plans, but this abortive stint with the parent club and the parade of multi-inning options ready to make their own impact is slowly lengthening those odds. If a team who believes completely in Myers as a future starter comes calling in the next couple of months, the Brewers might be willing to trade him for the help they so badly need on the left side of the infield. Otherwise, he could end up contributing out of the bullpen down the stretch this season.