Jake McKibbin

There is an element of misfortune here from Hardin. Stuff wise, he should struggle more to get past left handers, but his .410 BABIP against right handers has given him reverse splits. a FIP of 3.58 vs an ERA of 5.14 highlights that further. His four-seam also had a 50% whiff rate yesterday. there's some command improvements (command over control) to really maximise his arsenal, but the numbers suggest he's still pitching well Here are his numbers on the year:

Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images The Brewers' offense hasn't been firing for a while now. But the most concerning part isn't simply that they're struggling to score. It's how their approach appears to change when the pressure ramps up, and that's oddly reminiscent of the 2025 NLCS. We could look at the eighth inning, where Chad Patrick couldn't find the strike zone, or why Aaron Ashby once again was slow covering the bag after showcasing his own wild arsenal. We could look at the 10th, where Luis Lara got a pitch timer violation, and Brice Turang hesitated while trying to steal third base. Instead, the 11th inning is perhaps the best place to analyze the Brewers' recent travails under pressure. Picture the scene again. Trevor Megill just went multiple innings of work, closing out the ninth and shutting down the Manfred man in the tenth inning with the help of a wonderful catch from Garrett Mitchell. The Brewers have some momentum. To start the 11th, up steps Gary Sánchez against Adrian Morejón, one of the best relievers in baseball. Drilling a double down the left field line, Sánchez scores the runner from second, and the Brewers are now sitting with a runner on second, no outs, and a one-run lead. Sánchez took two triple-digit sinkers inside and off the plate, getting into a 2-0 count before getting something he wanted. He saw that Morejón was trying to bust him inside, so he waited for it to come back over the zone and got the bat head out early, ripping it into left field. Morejón was already showing some signs of his command deteriorating in his second inning of work, and a wild pitch got Gary Sanchez to third base with nobody out. Garrett Mitchell takes advantage, going up 3-0 in the count before working a six-pitch walk. Eventually, Mitchell would steal second base, but he showed patience and didn't over-extend himself. Then we come to David Hamilton. One of the criticisms we can have of this offense, particularly in the last two months, is how they lose their identity as hitters when they feel a big moment in the game. In this instance, scoring another run would have felt like a killer blow (and the Brewers would have approached the bottom of the inning differently with a two-run lead). Instead of waiting on the ball to come to him, Hamilton tried to snatch the glory. Morejón had already demonstrated that he couldn't reliably command the fastball, Hamilton had just watched Mitchell take three balls and walk, and the Brewers had a runner on third with nobody out. Given that context, expanding the zone twice was particularly difficult to justify. Yet expand on two straight pitches Hamilton did: Adrian Morejón follows the same script: two fastballs, too far inside and off the plate. Hamilton swings at both of them. Almost identical pitches, way in on Hamilton, and he was taking big cuts. Rather than patiently working the at-bat, working his counts, and trying to search for something he could drive, Hamilton tried to be the guy. Against a reliever like Morejón, that just won't work. Even if either of those pitches had clipped the top of the strike zone, Hamilton should not be swinging at them early in the count. He has squared up just 13% of pitches in the "up and in" quadrant, and produces a 64% ground ball rate with an average exit velocity of 65 mph in that zone, even if it did land in the strike zone. That is not the pitch Hamilton should be swinging on with the infield in and Sanchez at third base. Instead of staying patient and trusting his approach, Hamilton fell behind 0-2 and struck out on a high slider that would have looked very juicy in a 2-0 count. So up comes Joey Ortiz. He's seen Adrian Morejón throw seven of his eleven pitches outside the strike zone in this inning. Ortiz gets some leeway here as he should be looking for something up and away; that's a pitch he's done a good job of driving to the opposite field. That leeway, however, is wiped out by two things: one, he should be almost in auto-take mode on the first pitch. Two, he faced not a single pitch inside the strike zone in this entire at-bat. Morejón had thrown multiple non-competitive fastballs, and the Brewers had an advantage if they simply forced him to demonstrate he could throw strikes. Again, you don't want to hamper a hitter by saying don't swing at anything, but Ortiz should have been sitting on one very specific pitch, and taking anything that didn't resemble that pitch. None of the first four pitches Morejón threw in this at-bat would have resembled a quality pitch to hit. Morejón has the kind of elite raw stuff that makes chasing outside the zone particularly dangerous. You cannot chase a reliever of this caliber with impunity and expect to succeed. Either Hamilton or Ortiz walking would have put Morejón in an increasingly difficult position with the bases loaded, where his faltering command became even more dangerous. It would have forced an at-bat with Jackson Chourio, the one match-up the Brewers would have wanted to create. Instead, the Padres could intentionally walk Chourio and face Brice Turang against a top-tier left-hander, something Turang has struggled with all season. The Brewers offense is built on a team ethos. Pass the baton. Build pressure. Sequence good at-bats together. They're doing it in parts, but then moving away from that process when the pressure builds up, and it's costing them. What could have been an inspiring eleventh inning win turned into a gut-wrenching loss. Many will say the Brewers are fifth in runs scored this year, but it would be remiss not to mention how they've performed since the middle of June. Since June 10th, the Brewers have ranked 17th in runs scored. They've also had the joint best exit velocities in baseball during that time and an expected weighted on-base average that ranks fourth in that span. The Brewers' inability to convert opportunities is a major reason the offense has stopped producing at its earlier rate, and the deterioration has been particularly pronounced with runners in scoring position. I've showcased the splits before and after June 10th with runners in scoring position: Up to June 9th Since June 10th BA 0.280 0.227 xBA 0.255 0.220 xWOBA 0.335 0.299 Strikeout rate 19.90% 24.00% Walk rate 13.60% 10.50% The Brewers are striking out more and walking less, and it's the main reason for their dip in results with runners in scoring position. Yes, there was some fortune in their early-season production, but the last two months have been poor from both a process and expected results viewpoint too. Whatever the cause, the Brewers are showing signs that they're losing trust in the approach that got them here. It's exactly what we saw in the NLCS last year: a team forcing at-bats and suffering the results that come from that. The 2025 Brewers were built around an identifiable offensive philosophy: getting on base, avoiding strikeouts, making contact and creating pressure with a low chase rate and low strikeout rate. The NLCS exposed what happened when that philosophy disappeared against high-quality pitching, producing a historically awful .118 batting average in the series. This team is very capable of scoring runs, far more than we've seen in the last two months. There should be some optimism that they've performed as well as they have despite the malfunctioning offense, but they're going to need to find the belief in their approach soon. October baseball will not bode well without it. View full article

I would say yes, there's something, but only if they find a way to get more from the fastballs. Without that, it just can't play

Colton Gordon's fastballs from a stuff perspective are genuinely awful. If they're in any hittable location, it's getting pummelled (all three homers off the 4S/Sinker However, if the Brewers can find any sort of velocity to make them playable, I really like how the sounds used his pitch mix here, and he was getting a lot more swing and miss, especially elevating the four-seamer above the zone and using it as a chase pitch

Definitely worth monitoring

The second was slightly better with 6 innings, 3 earned runs in Oakland and they're small (albeit not Vegas small) park. I do hope the Rays can do something to help him find his extension again, but it's likely more of an off-season tweak. Would love to see him get paid somewhere but I don't know if that'll happen now

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect Blake Burke has more raw power than anyone else in the Brewers' minor league system. That's saying something considering the organization also has Andrew Fischer, Jesús Made, and Eric Bitonti. Burke has crushed his way to a 30 home run season in Biloxi (and 28 stolen bases ?!?) in just 96 games, and his promotion to Triple A is well earned after one of the most dominant months in Southern League history. Brewers player development shared a home run compilation along with Burke's statistics in July, which saw him fall just short of slugging 1.000 (yes, slugging) in the month: The exit velocities tell a story. Ranging from 106 mph to 116 mph, Blake Burke hit the ball hard, often, and was hitting it in the air. Burke is an aggressive swinger, but his contact rate overall is north of 70% this season, which is passable. His in-zone contact rate is around 78%, again a strong enough number to play well at the major league level if he can sustain it. The only concerns with Burke's profile to date are something the Brewers have been tight on, and that's his swing decisions. Burke has chased roughly 35% of pitches outside the strike zone this season, putting him in the bottom 10% of hitters in Double A by chase rate. The problem isn't necessarily that he'll miss every pitch he chases. It's that chasing removes him from counts where he can do the most damage, potentially turning elite raw power into merely above-average game power. Will there be a point where chasing too often limits the power he can produce? Well, if we look at the major league level, there are a bunch of names that have been chasing more than Burke, and some of those names may surprise you. This isn't a one-to-one comparison. Burke is seeing Double-A pitching, while these hitters are doing it against major league arms. But the comparison is still useful because it shows that a high chase rate doesn't automatically make an aggressive hitter unplayable. There are currently 30 hitters that chase more than Burke in the major leagues, and while the chart below that showcases expected Weighted On Base Average (xWOBA) should increase the more a hitter chases, there are some exceptions to this: There are a number of successful hitters who chase above 35% of the time, and some of them are the more exciting players in baseball. If we isolate it to just those who chase above 35% of the time and have an xWOBA over .340, we have Julio Rodriguez, Luis Garcia Jr, Michael Harris II, Alec Burleson, Jac Caglianone, CJ Abrams and Jordan Walker. Yes, they chase, but they offset it by maximizing their aggression inside the strike zone and leveraging that for power. Jac Caglianone is an interesting comparison for Burke. Sitting near or at the top of the league for hard-hit rates, barrel rates, average exit velocities and bat speed, his quality of contact metrics are superb. His chase rate, however, limits him from maximizing that contact into being a true superstar; however, he's doing exactly what he needs to do to maximize his profile. Slugging pitches over the heart of the plate. Caglianone has an expected slugging mark of .718 on pitches over the heart of the plate, ranking 17th in all of baseball (interestingly, Jackson Chourio is 15th). That damage has led him to hit .264/.317/.480 while playing the majority of his games in the pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium. So while he chases and strikes out, Caglianone is a prime example of why chase rate isn't necessarily the problem. Ineffective aggression is. Blake Burke's power is not in question. Regardless of the level, if pitchers are attacking him inside the strike zone, he has the kind of raw power Milwaukee hasn't seen from a first-base prospect since Prince Fielder that can damage those baseballs. If he can further develop his swing decisions, the Brewers may have one of the best first basemen in the league. If he can't, there's still a path to being a serviceable, powerful first baseman who steals more bases than Josh Naylor (it's wizardry, honestly). Burke's promotion has come at an interesting time. While there isn't a clear path currently to the major leagues for Burke with Jake Bauers taking the role of an everyday, left-handed first baseman, Bauers is hitting free agency after this year. This move is going to give Burke enough playing time in Nashville to potentially propel himself into that first base conversation for 2027, but it also gives the Brewers coverage. There are three potential, if unlikely, routes to seeing Blake Burke in Milwaukee this season. Jake Bauers is playing with a broken toe at the moment, and while he's playing through it using pain management and performing well, the toe is an interesting injury. It absorbs a lot of the ground force that hitters use to create torque from their legs, and it's not inconceivable the Brewers would want to give Bauers some time off down the stretch. It also provides some DH cover should Christian Yelich get injured, which hasn't been uncommon in past seasons. Finally, the rosters expand in September, allowing one extra hitter and one extra pitcher to join the team. The Brewers aren't in need of another position player without versatility, but Burke has a month of games to show he can be a force in a bench bat role. While this is likely a move for next season, it does give the Brewers some options in terms of injury cover, or even expanded roster cover in September, if Burke hits the ground running. It's worth continuing to monitor the chase rates with publicly available statcast data, but even if they stay steady, that doesn't mean Burke won't be successful at the highest level. View full article

That's fair! I will say, Tatis is the most interesting of these as he made a converted change in July. He's always been a very open stance guy, around 36°. For some reason, he was more closed to start the year, around 10°, and if you remember David Hamilton homered before he did. He's since opened up again and looked a lot more like the old Fernando. As for the others, I can't be sure, but we also know from Chourio that talented hitters usually find a way to get their timing at some point in the season, and Merrill/Machado deservedly fall into that category

The Brewers are about to face a very hot Padres offense, where Jackson Merrill and Fernando Tatis Jr have turned things around. Since June 1st: Jackson Merrill - 153 WRC+ Ty France - 144 WRC+ Fernando Tatis Jr - 138 WRC+ Manny Machado - 127 WRC+ Those four have combined to hit 29 home runs in 40 days between them. Luckily in Henderson, Harrison and May, the Brewers playoff rotation is about to be tested by a hot playoff offense. Hopefully the knackered bullpen doesn't hurt in a big way, as I'd expect Lyon Richardson to eat at least a couple of innings today. Maybe only Hall, Patrick and Richardson available

Jesus MadeLuis LaraLuis PenaJosh AdamczewskiBlake BurkeAndrew FischerBraylon PayneMarco DingesJett WilliamsJeferson QueroTyson HardinBrady EbelBishop LetsonJayden DubanewiczJaron DeBerryJosh KnothSawyer StrosniderLuke AdamsTrey EbelDiego Frontado

Jesus MadeLuis LaraLuis PenaJosh AdamczewskiBlake BurkeAndrew FischerBraylon PayneMarco DingesJett WilliamsJeferson QueroTyson HardinBrady EbelBishop LetsonJayden DubanewiczJaron DeBerryJosh KnothSawyer StrosniderLuke AdamsTrey EbelDiego Frontado

I'd imagine this is more to do with working on the breaking ball command rather than any concrete change to pitch usage, but he did land more sweepers and curveballs in zone in this outing. Curveball got hit hard. Sinker command didn't grade out well, but a lot of weak contact and it's the fastball I feel he has least command over at present. All in all, I like this approach from a development standpoint

Has there been any further information on Jett Williams' injury Rob?