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Peter Lambert makes his third career appearance against Milwaukee today, and his second start against the Brewers. The 29-year-old righthander, a second-round Rockies draft pick in 2015, is finally enjoying some success after a long and winding road, now pitching for Houston. Baseball Savant credits him with six pitches in his arsenal. Brandon Sproat makes his ninth start for Milwaukee. Sproat has allowed three earned runs in each of his three previous starts.

Interesting data on Houston and Milwaukee pitchers:

Image courtesy of © Matt Krohn-Imagn Images Milwaukee swept St. Louis and now enjoys a four-game lead in the division. Just prior to that, however, the Brewers dropped their series against Los Angeles. Are the Dodgers a mental barrier for Milwaukee? This week, Brewer Fanatic weighs in on our wealthiest adversary, a fading right fielder, and the prospects knocking on the door. Brewers: Isn't it at least partially a mentality issue? The Dodgers' payroll is nearly three times larger than Milwaukee's. The talent gap is not. Los Angeles has the resources to fill nearly any weakness with All-Star-level talent. Yet the Brewers compete well with the Dodgers in the regular season and have met in the postseason three times since 2018, losing each time. Wouldn't Milwaukee benefit from a clubhouse leader who simply looks around the room and says, "Enough is enough?" Our forum community believes the Dodgers may be living rent-free inside the heads of Brewers fans, but probably not the players. Los Angeles is a historically great team operating under an unequal financial structure, and the Brewers have earned the right to face them. The next step is beating them. One poster turns the thread on its head by suggesting a playoff series opening with Jacob Misiorowski and Kyle Harrison would be more intimidating for Los Angeles than anything the Dodgers could throw back at Milwaukee. Brewer Fanatic lives for the David versus Goliath matchups. It sure would be nice for Milwaukee to turn the tables. Brewers: When will Frelick get benched? Happiness is a product of expectations. For Brewers fans watching Sal Frelick, there isn't much of either anymore. Joey Ortiz can struggle with the bat because his elite defense keeps him above replacement level. Luis Rengifo can struggle with seemingly everything, and it hurts less because no one believed he was a core piece. Frelick produced 3.6 fWAR last season with a 114 wRC+. This season, his value has plummeted to -0.4 fWAR and a 69 wRC+ over 192 plate appearances. Worse still, Sal carries a .375 OPS and a seemingly impossible .116 BABIP against left-handed pitching across 56 plate appearances this year. Pat Murphy keeps penciling Frelick into the lineup, even against lefties. The Brewer Fanatic community seems aligned that the time has come to at least play Blake Perkins over Frelick against southpaws. Better still, could we be just a few weeks away from Luis Lara's promotion from Nashville? Minors: Thurs. 5/28: Between a Wichrowski and a Hard(in) Place The best Brewers minor league coverage is on Brewer Fanatic, where our daily game threads are the perfect place to share and receive nightly prospect updates and game results. Last night, multiple posters noted that Luis Lara raised his batting average to .346 after collecting two more hits for Nashville. Even more impressive, Luis Peña reached base five times, pushing his on-base percentage to .492 on the season for the Timber Rattlers. Our community has taken note that Lara's numbers are even more impressive against left-handed pitching, where he has produced a 1.215 OPS over 44 at-bats. Lara is a 21-year-old switch-hitting center fielder whose profile would look compelling in Milwaukee, even with expected regression at the big-league level. We can assume the front office will consider outfield changes next month, once the Super Two threshold passes. It's a great day to be a Brewers fan on Brewer Fanatic! View full article

Frelick's 2025 exit velocity was 85.5. This year it is 85.6. To the extent he has always been below average with EV, he is driving the ball similarly to last year. His launch angle is way down from last year, though. source

Frelick was a scrappy 2-3 bWAR player the past two seasons. His OPS+ ranged from 90 to 111. if he starts going to the opposite field again and his BABIP returns to normal, his numbers will improve. That said, Luis Lara would probably outperform Sal next month.

That’s fair. At the same time, he has spent most of his time in Nashville. To your point, probably unnecessarily.

In the playoffs, I don’t anticipate Henderson, Gasser and Sproat getting the ball very often. In a real way, each are mostly AAA pitchers this season.. Milwaukee had an opportunity to win game two last series against the Dodgers until Hall and Woodford collapsed in the late innings. Game three was competitive until the one blowup inning, too. The Brewers played well enough given that we threw mostly B team pitchers the entire series.

Sal has .231 BABIP this year, meaningfully below his career average of .298. Walks are up and strikeouts are down year over year. He is going to the opposite field less often this season, but exit velocity is nearly identical to last year.

Let’s keep things on topic. 🙂

Cal Eldred did it August 1992 and Jerry Ball September 1972. Minimum 25 IP in a month for Milwaukee. source More recently, Chris Young for Padres in June 2007 then Pedro Martinez in July 1993 as reliever. minimum 20 IP source

28-year-old right-hander Dustin May gets the start for the Cardinals. I wasn't aware of the life-threatening injury he suffered in 2024 from an errant bite of salad. I'm glad he's okay. On the baseball front, May is allowing a 49.1% hard-hit rate this season. His fastball averages 96.8 mph, but his breaking stuff hasn't been effective. Milwaukee is still TBD. Maybe Patrick or Hall?

Cubs were in first place seven days ago.

If Quero isn’t perceived as a starter in Milwaukee yet, I think Contreras is back next year.

Who is second baseman, JJ Wetherholt?

My biggest complaint against Rengifo would be if his erratic throws to first get Bauers or Vaughn injured. There have been too many acrobatic picks at first base.

In spite of the jarring futility with the bat, Hayes is nearly replacement level this season. Faint praise. It looks like Hayes is going on the disabled list and Cincinnati is activating Eugenio Suarez. Suarez has not moved the needle, at zero bWAR this season.

Would we even trade Drohan for Durbin today?

William’s power was waiting for Wisco jerseys…

Roki Sasaki starts for Los Angeles. The 24-year-old right-hander carries a 5.09 ERA and an xERA of 5.12, meaning the underlying numbers confirm he's been exactly as hittable as the results suggest. Sasaki has already surrendered nine home runs over 40.2 innings, identical to Brandon Sproat. Worth noting: he had the best start of his career last time out, holding the Angels to just one run over seven innings. Robert Gasser makes his second start of the season for Milwaukee. Last time out, Gasser went 4 IP allowing 3 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 2 BB and 3 HBP with 3 K against Minnesota.

Dodgers have 5.27 times the salary commitments compared to the Brewers. # Player Pos Contract Total Years 1 Chourio CF $82M 8 yrs 2 Turang 2B $4.15M 1 yr 3 Contreras C $9.4M 1 yr 4 Yelich DH $215M 9 yrs 5 Vaughn 1B $7.65M 1 yr 6 Bauers LF $2.7M 1 yr 7 Rengifo 3B $2.78M 1 yr 8 Frelick RF $0.78M 1 yr 9 Ortiz SS $0.78M 1 yr P Henderson SP $0.78M 1 yr Total $325.82M