Jack Stern

Since July 10, 171 pitchers throughout Major League Baseball have thrown at least 20 innings. Bryse Wilson is the only one who has not issued a walk. July 10 was the day Wilson signed a big-league deal to return to the Brewers, for whom he filled every role from starter to high-leverage reliever across the 2023 and 2024 seasons. This time around, his role has been more strictly defined as the long man. It's the least glamorous task on a pitching staff and comes with a mundane job description: throw strikes to eat innings. Because the game is often nearly decided by the time a long reliever takes over, keeping runs off the board is a plus, but not a necessity. Wilson understands his assignment and has flooded the strike zone with impressive efficiency. He's recorded six or more outs in five appearances, maxing out at four innings in a July 21 outing. Since his signing last month, his 55.3% zone rate is the fifth-highest among those pitchers with at least 20 innings. "If I come in and we're down a lot of runs, I know that innings have to be covered," Wilson said. "I just go in and do the best I can to cover as many innings to where the next day, we have a much better chance to win because everybody's available and there's more options to go to in the bullpen." Wilson's strike-throwing and embrace of his role have not gone unnoticed by his manager. "He's been magnificent. He really has," Pat Murphy said. "It's the epitome of that role, understanding that role. I think of a long snapper. I think of a great punter, a great kicker—somebody [who] just contributes when not too many people are noticing the greatness, and he does his role." While the game situation in most of his outings has freed Wilson to be even more aggressive in the zone, he also posted zone rates above 50% in each of his previous two seasons with the Brewers. He acknowledged that their emphasis on tunneling different fastball variations within the zone has typically worked best for his unassuming stuff, making Milwaukee a uniquely good fit. "I think it's just a lot of filling up the zone and just trusting that I can get guys out in-zone," Wilson said. "I'm not necessarily going after chase. Kind of avoid the longer at-bats." "He just pounds [the zone], but he pounds with command, and that ball is going all different ways," Murphy said. "He's not afraid 2-0 to throw a heater, where in today's game the amount of 2-0 heaters has decreased immensely. He's not afraid to just cut a heater or use a little comeback sinker on a 2-0 count, and he's got that kind of command." Wilson isn't just throwing strikes with his fastballs. He's throwing quality strikes. Since signing, he's been one of baseball's best command pitchers by Location+, and his stuff is playing better than ever. In his first two seasons as a Brewer, Wilson's 3.42 ERA masked a less impressive 4.73 xERA, 4.68 FIP, and 4.33 SIERA. This time, he's pitched to a 3.15 ERA, 3.33 xERA, 1.93 FIP, and 2.95 SIERA. Wilson hasn't been a soft-contact specialist, but he's held hitters to a meager 3.1% barrel rate. That success has come after Wilson returned to what worked best for him before, with a few new wrinkles. Last season, the White Sox tried to help him develop his secondary pitches, including a new changeup reliant on seam-shifted wake (cutting the ball just the right amount, so that the distribution of airflow around the seams pushes the ball down and to the arm side). Wilson lowered his arm slot, which impacted the movement of his fastballs and may have reduced his deception. Most notably, his cutter lost some of the downward and glove-side movement that made it effective. This season, Wilson has raised his slot slightly, and his pitches are moving as they did during his first stint in Milwaukee. Since rejoining the Brewers, he's also transitioned back toward his old mix, leaning increasingly on his cutter and sinker at the expense of his curveball and a new split-changeup. His refined command may also stem from improved timing in his delivery. When he was last a Brewer, Wilson lowered his hands toward his lap as he began his windup, which meant he had to bring them back up during his leg kick. 2024 windup.mp4 This year, he's eliminated some of that movement by using an over-the-head windup and starting his hands at his chest out of the stretch. Now, when Wilson begins his leg kick, he no longer needs to worry about where his hands are to ensure his arm is on time when his front foot lands. 2026.mp4 "Earlier this season, I was kind of having a tough time finding the timing in the break of when the hands separate, and so I was just kind of going through different things and trying to figure out what felt good," Wilson said. "Back when I played with Atlanta, I went over the head and had some success doing it, and so I tried it, and it felt good. The timing felt good, and I just didn't feel like I had to think about it as much. So we just kind of rolled with it." Wilson's latest tenure in Milwaukee has technically been two stints, as the partnership survived unusual roster math when the club used a six-man rotation over a stretch of 17 games in 17 days. When a 34-pitch outing left him unavailable for a few days, the Brewers designated him for assignment on August 8 to add a fresh arm, in Lyon Richardson. After Wilson cleared waivers and elected free agency, they signed him again on August 11 to replace Richardson, who pitched the night before. "In my mind, I thought there was a possibility that we could come back," Wilson said. "It was just about seeing it through, and then the timing of it just kind of worked out perfectly to where they needed to make a move, and I had just cleared waivers, so it was just good timing and kind of worked out all around." As one of the last relievers in the bullpen—particularly one who cannot be optioned to the minor leagues—Wilson's spot on the 40-man roster will never be fully secure. However, he's thrown well enough to help keep the rest of the bullpen reasonably fresh, and the Brewers can add one more reliever to their bullpen as a September call-up next week. If he continues performing, Wilson could stick through the rest of the season. "He's been great," Murphy said. "He's loved in that locker room."

More than anything, the Brewers’ only loss in an otherwise successful series against the Mariners came because Dustin May put them in a 7-0 hole after two innings. Even after that, the offense battled back to make it a close 7-5 loss. Milwaukee might even have notched a three-game sweep, if not for a few poor at-bats that quashed potential late-inning rallies. Trailing 7-2 in the sixth, William Contreras and Christian Yelich walked. Andrew Vaughn singled to load the bases with nobody out for Luis Lara. Lara watched a pair of strikes to go down 0-2 (including a pitch fully inside the zone that he thought was a ball) before chasing an Eduard Bazardo sinker up and away. “The pitch before that might have been a ball, I don't know, but he let that really bother him,” Pat Murphy said postgame. “Then he went to the next pitch, and he wasn't as focused.” After Joey Ortiz’s sacrifice fly plated the runner from third to make it 7-3, Cooper Pratt stepped up with two outs. After Bazardo executed a back-door sinker for strike one, he missed badly with two sweepers to put Pratt ahead 2-1. Hitters say that there are no longer true fastball counts in the modern game. For the most part, they’re correct. The league fastball usage has steadily decreased throughout the pitch-tracking era, particularly since the turn of the decade. In 2015, hitters saw fastballs on 70.9% of pitches when ahead in the count. This year, that rate is down to 64.4%, a significant difference. This was a rare fastball count. The Mariners still had a four-run lead, and Bazardo had fallen behind on non-competitive breaking balls with leadoff hitter Brice Turang on deck. He needed an in-zone pitch to regain count leverage. Pratt didn’t need to sell out for velocity, but he needed to be ready to pull the trigger on a fastball over the heart of the plate. He wasn’t. Bazardo planted a sinker right down the middle, and Pratt watched it go by for strike two. That set up a chase on a sweeper that nearly hit the dirt for an inning-ending strikeout. Positioned for a big inning, the Brewers barely scratched across a run. Pratt had a shot at redemption in his next at-bat in the eighth, coming up as the tying run with runners on the corners in a 7-4 game. In a similar setup, Seranthony Domínguez fell behind 2-0, first with a sweeper that bounced in the other batter’s box, then a fastball yanked low and away. Again, Pratt needed to be ready for the fastball. He got it again and swung—but this time, he probably shouldn’t have. It was a sinker barreling toward the inner third of the zone. Pratt was late and got jammed, bouncing a double play to second that plated a run but left the bases empty while still trailing by two. It would be the last run the Brewers scored. “Pratt's last two at-bats, he just left the zone and left the zone [again],” Murphy said, referring the second time to a pitcher’s pitch that Pratt should have taken with no strikes. He was out of the lineup the following day, with Ortiz starting at shortstop, instead. Just three months apart in age, Pratt and Lara are traveling similar paths. Both are trying to establish themselves in the big leagues during a playoff push after signing pre-debut extensions. Both have been valuable from the get-go, thanks to their defense: Pratt already has 4 Defensive Runs Saved at shortstop, while Lara is at 1 Out Above Average in right field. Offensively, it’s been a mixed bag. That was expected. Pratt has posted better results (97 wRC+) than Lara (84 wRC+), but Lara’s at-bats have arguably been better. His .325 xwOBA and 91 DRC+, metrics that focus on plate discipline and contact quality, are higher than Pratt’s. Lara’s ball-strike recognition has been impressive for his age, as he’s chased just 21.7% of pitches outside the zone. After that strikeout, he bounced back with a line-drive single up the middle in his next at-bat. Pratt deserves some grace for a pair of rough at-bats in his first game back from a hamstring injury, but his swing decisions were less refined in the minor leagues. At times, he’s shown a knack for the measured opposite-field approach the Brewers wanted to see before he grows into his raw power, but his chase rate had been ballooning in recent weeks, even before the injury. “Those kids are 21,” Murphy said. “Sometimes in this league, when you're 21, you make those kind of mistakes. [Jackson] Chourio’s made them. He's done the same thing. So they'll have to learn from it.” Now is the time for those lessons. The Brewers aren’t asking Pratt or Lara to be their most important bats as rookies, but if they start games in the postseason, they could hit in pivotal situations. To succeed in those moments, they’ll need to stay mentally grounded and have smart at-bats. Milwaukee is constantly striking a balance between developing and competing in the big leagues, and they're experiencing both sides with their two youngest players.

Kyle Harrison isn’t at his best right now. Since returning from a stint on the injured list with forearm tightness, his velocity and command have been below their first-half levels. That was the case again on Tuesday night. Harrison’s fastball averaged 93.5 MPH (well below his season average of 95 MPH) and he threw just 47% of them in the strike zone. “I think there was flashes of brilliance, and then there was times when he was kind of not in sync, and the fastball didn’t play like it normally does,” Pat Murphy said postgame. As Harrison approaches his career-high of 124 ⅓ innings from 2024 (between the big leagues and a rehab start last month, he’s at 104 this year), he’s battling mechanical issues. His arm angle has steadily gotten lower, particularly since his return from the injured list. “Just looking at the history of my time here, it’s been as the season gets longer, and as you go further in the season, the arm release likes to drop a little bit,” Harrison said. “I’ve always known that with myself, but then it’s staying consistent on the work throughout the week to make sure I maintain that.” Harrison is at his best when his arm angle is closer to 34°. That’s when his slot is high enough to drive through the baseball and backspin it to create the carry on his dominant four-seamer. In Harrison’s last start in San Diego, his slot dropped to a season-low 28°, and he allowed a season-high eight runs. Those velocity and mechanical declines are real concerns to monitor down the stretch. The Brewers will need the healthy and effective version of Harrison in October. For now, amid those issues, he still struck out eight in five scoreless innings Tuesday night. After just three swings and misses through his first three innings, he induced six whiffs over his final two frames. “I’d say the heater was more down in the zone early, and then just wasn’t really getting up to the arm slot I’d like,” Harrison said. “It took a little bit longer than I liked, but yeah, the heater command definitely got better.” Harrison is a microcosm of the Brewers as a team right now. The dog days of August are here, and they just played 17 games in 17 days—a stretch that included parts of two West Coast trips. They lost Joey Ortiz, Cooper Pratt, and Brice Turang to concurrent injuries, forcing a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency infield of Andrew Vaughn at third base and Gary Sánchez at first. Using a six-man rotation left them a man short in the bullpen even before Abner Uribe hit the injured list. They were swept by the Padres last week in a three-game series filled with poor situational hitting and questionable defense. “Seventeen games and two West Coast trips in a matter of three weeks wasn’t easy,” Jake Bauers said. “I think everybody was kind of feeling it a little bit. I don’t know that anybody in here will tell you that, but I think we were feeling it toward the end there.” And yet, the Brewers kept winning just enough. They snapped their three-game skid with a ninth-inning comeback win against the Dodgers, the first of three wins in the four-game series. At the start of those 17 games, they led the NL Central by 5.5 games. After going 10-7 in that stretch, they returned home with a five-game lead. Monday was a much-needed off day. With a grueling trip in the rearview mirror, the Brewers returned to play and clobbered the Mariners in a 22-0 win, the most lopsided victory in franchise history. It didn’t start that way. The Brewers were still in grind-it-out mode through the first half of the game, clinging to a 1-0 lead through four-and-a-half innings. That lone run scored on a gritty baserunning play by Bauers in the first. After an aggressive send by third base coach Matt Erickson on William Contreras’s two-out single to shallow left field and a strong throw by Randy Arozarena, Bauers looked like an easy out at the plate. He tried to dive headfirst into home, just as he did successfully on a nearly identical play in LA on Sunday. This time, the throw took Cal Raleigh into the lane to which Bauers had already committed himself, so Bauers’s dive attempt took him into Raleigh’s glove. “I saw the replay. I definitely wasn’t trying to hit his glove,” Bauers said. “I was more trying to protect him and me because I didn’t want to barrel through him. I didn’t want to break my neck on his chest protector.” In bracing himself, Bauers inadvertently swatted the ball out of Raleigh’s glove. As Raleigh retrieved it, Christian Yelich noticed that Bauers hadn’t touched the plate and yelled at him to dive back into home. “I don’t really remember what happened after that,” Bauers said. “I just remember Yeli screaming at me to touch home.” It wasn’t pretty, but Bauers’s left hand barely beat Raleigh’s tag to score the run. That kind of scratch-and-claw play epitomizes the Brewers’ identity under Murphy, and it’s been their means of survival during this stretch. Every inch has felt like a mile. “I play hard,” Bauers said. “I don’t know any other way. Regardless of the score, if I’m out there, I’m going to play hard.” After that 18-pitch first, the Brewers worked Bryce Miller for 23 more pitches in the second. The breakthrough didn’t come until the fifth, though. After they pecked away with two singles and a pair of walks (including an RBI knock by Jackson Chourio and a sac fly by William Contreras), Yelich blew things open with a three-run homer to make it 6-0. That ended Miller’s night at 92 pitches in just 4 2/3 innings. “That’s how we play,” Murphy said. “To be able to lay off really tough pitches and not panic that you have to swing because you’re down 0-1. Having two strikes is not a death [sentence]. Those type of at-bats. Then Yeli hits a big homer, and you break through.” The floodgates opened from there, with a combination of quality plate appearances and poor Seattle defense. Earlier in the day, there were symbols affirming that the most grueling portion of the schedule was over. Turang returned to the lineup after missing four games, and Pratt began what could be a one-game rehab assignment in Appleton. With each run that scored, the road trip seemed further in the rearview mirror. Exactly one week ago, Gary Sánchez was lobbing eephus pitches in a blowout loss. Now, he was finishing off a blowout win. More challenges lie ahead. The Brewers must manage the workloads of Harrison and their other young starters during a pennant race. Next week, they begin a stretch of 16 games in 16 days, seven of them against the second-place Cubs in two series that could decide the division. They still can’t let off the gas, even after weathering what was likely to be their toughest stretch on paper. Most teams have hot streaks throughout the course of a 162-game season. What separates the best teams is their ability to avoid prolonged losing streaks when they aren’t playing well and their environment is stacked against them. The Brewers earned a comfortable division lead by playing their best baseball in the first half. This is the time for staying afloat. So far, they’ve remained up to the task.

Logan Henderson is not Tarik Skubal. At his best, Skubal’s two fastballs flirt with triple digits. They comprise just one part of a powerful five-pitch mix from the left side. His ceiling is the best starting pitcher in baseball. Henderson, meanwhile, averages 93 MPH with his heater, and his ceiling is probably a solid No. 2 starter. But when the Brewers reportedly withheld Henderson from an already-aggressive trade offer to the Detroit Tigers, and Skubal instead became a Los Angeles Dodger for a pitching-centric return, the calculus wasn’t just about ceiling. Skubal was a rental who would make at most 15 more starts through a 2026 World Series run. Even if the best version of Skubal is better than the best version of Henderson, the latter could easily perform similarly for the rest of this year, after which he’ll have five more seasons of team control before free agency. Skubal’s body of work since he started breaking out in 2023 is more significant, but Henderson has come impressively close to his rate stats in his first 17 big-league starts. That includes a nearly identical strikeout-minus-walk rate, among the most powerful predictors of pitcher performance. Pitcher GS IP ERA- FIP- DRA- SIERA K-BB% Tarik Skubal 96 581.1 60 59 70 2.80 26.9% Logan Henderson 17 88.2 61 78 87 2.95 26.3% The emphasis here is “close.” If the question is whom to pick for 15 starts, the answer is Skubal. If the question is whom to pick for a winner-take-all postseason start, the answer is Skubal. Henderson isn’t a bad alternative, though. He’s capable of matching him within such a 15-start stretch and on a given night. Henderson going directly against Skubal just a couple of weeks after the trade was a prompt test of that hypothesis. The early returns supported it. Skubal didn’t have great support from his defense, as just one of the two runs he allowed was earned. For that reason, it’s not quite fair to say Henderson outdueled him, but he absolutely matched him. Beyond their box-score lines, the two were nearly identical when it came to commanding the strike zone and missing barrels. Pitcher IP H ER BB K CStr + Whiff Whiff Hard Hit Barrel Tarik Skubal 6 7 1 2 7 31% (29/93) 29% (15/52) 47% (8/17) 6% (1/17) Logan Henderson 7 3 1 1 6 28% (31/109) 28% (18/64) 50% (9/18) 5% (1/18) Adding to the symmetry is the fact that both pitchers are propelled by their excellent changeups. Both Henderson and Skubal induced whiffs on 50% of swings with their changeups Sunday, offsetting louder contact against their fastballs. Most notably, Henderson got another opportunity to pitch into the seventh inning after an unsuccessful attempt in his last start. In San Diego, his fastball velocity tumbled to 90.6 MPH in his seventh frame, and he hung a changeup to Jackson Merrill for a go-ahead home run. On Sunday, Henderson averaged 93.7 MPH in the seventh, tossing a scoreless final inning and tying a career high with 93 pitches. As things currently stand, Skubal and Henderson could line up for a direct rematch in a postseason game. Even if they don’t, Henderson profiles as one of the Brewers’ top three starters, so they’ll start him in important October games. Whether those outings come against the Dodgers or someone else, they’ll hope for similar results to what they would have gotten from Skubal had they acquired him instead. A Sunday afternoon outing in August guarantees nothing from a rookie starter in the postseason, but it was the latest sign that the guy the Brewers insisted on keeping could match the game’s best arms when needed.

After he allowed a season-high six earned runs against the Minnesota Twins in his last start, Shane Drohan knew what went wrong. "I was just too low with the slider," he said postgame. Drohan's tight gyro slider is his best pitch. FanGraphs's Stuff+ model grades it as his most dominant pitch (108 Stuff+), and big-league hitters have managed just a .215 xwOBA against it (with a 41.6% whiff rate) this year. It wasn't a useful part of his arsenal last Friday, however, because he was not nearly competitive enough with it. Sliders are usually more of a chase pitch than an in-zone pitch, because their late break occurs after the hitter has already decided to swing. But to force those chases, the slider must start in or near the bottom of the zone. Drohan wasn't doing that against the Twins. Just a quarter of his sliders were in the zone, and most of them bounced in the dirt well shy of home plate. "I was just throwing it too low," Drohan said. "It could be a couple inches higher, so out of hand it's looking like that fastball at the bottom of the zone." The Twins made him pay. Because those sliders were nowhere close, they could effectively eliminate swinging at anything around the bottom of the zone. That allowed them to focus on the top of the zone, where Drohan likes to attack with his fastballs. Of the nine hits he allowed, eight came on fastballs, and five came on heaters at or above the belt. Drohan wasn't hit as hard as his line indicated. His average exit velocity against was 78.6 mph, and only six of 18 batted balls (33.3%) were hit 95 mph or above. If anything, that's a testament to how deceptive his fastballs can be. However, those deceptive heaters usually induce plenty of swings and misses around the top of the zone. The Twins only whiffed twice each at Drohan's four-seamer and cutter. Eliminating the slider was the difference between a whiff and contact that could find the outfield grass, even if it wasn't hit hard. "They eliminated down, and the breaking ball didn't come into play," Pat Murphy said. "His slider did not come into play much, and that's been key for him." The issues with the slider have become a recurring problem for Drohan over his past few starts. Before his Twins start, he bounced plenty of uncompetitive sliders in Anaheim, but he threw enough at the bottom of the zone to work six solid innings with seven strikeouts. He even induced chases on some of those bad misses against a poor Los Angeles Angels lineup. A better offense made him pay his next time out. "They hit them hard," Murphy said. "You give up 10 hits, or whatever you gave up, that's unusual. A couple homers. He missed some spots." On the whole, Drohan is still authoring a productive rookie season. His 3.87 ERA is still above average, and his 3.50 xERA and 3.34 FIP are both a touch lower. He's one of the reasons Milwaukee's pitching staff has kept chugging along amid injuries and workload management measures. "He's throwing the ball great for us," Murphy said. "Let's not act like he hasn't been good. If you had to pick four guys from the July time frame, this guy would be one of the four in everybody's ballot who have put us in this position." As October nears, though, the Brewers will have to decide whether Drohan fits best as a back-of-the-rotation starter or a multi-inning reliever who can pitch in high-leverage situations. He has the arsenal and poise for either role and has shown flashes in both. To be the productive starter version, Drohan needs to get his slider closer to the plate more consistently.

After his name appeared in rumors last month, Logan Henderson remained a Brewer after last Monday's trade deadline. Given that the club reportedly made Henderson off-limits in trade talks for Tarik Skubal, it seems that's the outcome both player and team preferred. "I saw my name thrown in there," Henderson told reporters after his last start on Tuesday, the night after the deadline. "I actually saw [Matt] Arnold earlier today, and I said thank you for not dishing me away." To this point, Henderson's big-league opportunities have not been as consistent as he and the Brewers prefer. At this time one year ago, elbow inflammation ultimately ended his season prematurely. Earlier this year, he missed six weeks with a low back strain. As a result, Henderson has made just 15 career major-league starts. Including last year's postseason, that's four months of big-league games in which Henderson has been with the Brewers but unable to pitch. He's still found ways to benefit from that time. "When I've been on the shelf, I'm watching the game all the time," Henderson said over the weekend. "I'm always still thinking about baseball, still seeing how I can improve in a lot of different areas. I live and breathe the game, and I'm always thinking about it and seeing how I can get better." One might expect that missing time due to injury could impact a 24-year-old rookie's ability to settle in at the game's highest level. It's had no noticeable effect on Henderson, who has looked at home on a big-league mound whenever he's been available. In those 15 starts, he's pitched to a 2.39 ERA, 3.06 FIP, and 91 DRA- with an excellent 32.6% strikeout rate. "I don't know that I have a great answer for that," Henderson said of his ability to pick up where he left off after being sidelined. "I feel like when I get back in a 'compete' mode and when I'm in-game, it's like I get in that zone and it's kind of hard to explain." In his five starts last year, Henderson proved that his stuff could get big-league hitters out, but the jury remained out on whether he could succeed sustainably as a starting pitcher. His ride-run four-seamer and fading changeup from a low slot created a lethal two-pitch combination, but he lacked feel for a third pitch with consistent glove-side movement. In his debut season, 89% of Henderson's pitches were a fastball or changeup, raising questions about his effectiveness multiple times through a lineup. Henderson is quelling those concerns this year. He's reduced that combined usage of fastballs and changeups to 78%, mainly by making his cutter a bona fide secondary pitch to right-handed hitters. Last season, Henderson did not throw a single cutter to a righty, but for much of this year, it's become his go-to secondary in those matchups. "Honestly, it's kind of just a comfortability thing," Henderson said. "Being able to have a full offseason with it, spring, then time in Nashville, I felt really good about it. If I'm a two-pitch pitcher to a righty, you can flip a coin and you know what's coming. So I think it's a really good buffer, and I think it's a good pitch. I think William [Contreras] likes it a lot too because he calls it a lot. So I think a lot of it was just him pressing cutter behind the plate, me being convicted in it, and just kind of running with it." Metrically, Henderson's cutter still grades as his worst pitch. A decent chunk of them still back up with slight arm-side run, rather than true cut. Stuff is only part of the equation, though. Last year, Henderson also threw a short gyro slider as a potential fourth pitch. Over the offseason, he traded it for a sweeping breaking ball. Both have graded as nastier pitches than the cutter, but Henderson has struggled to find a consistent feel for them. The cutter has been a more repeatable in-zone pitch, making it a more sensible third offering. "It's how does this blend with my arsenal, and then how does it feel coming out of my hand? How does it feel throwing it?" Henderson said. "Last year, I had the gyro, and I loved it, and I thought it was a good pitch, but I didn't execute it great. It didn't feel good on my elbow, so I'm not throwing that one anymore. And then the cutter, I think, is just necessary. You look at my arsenal, and I'm not throwing the slider a ton, so I need something turning left." Furthermore, despite its unimpressive characteristics, the cutter has excelled at missing barrels. According to Statcast, Henderson's cutter has posted a +1 run value while holding opponents to a .279 xwOBA, 33.3% hard-hit rate, and 20.5% whiff rate. The raw movement numbers are probably underselling it. Henderson's cutter may not actually cut much, but he's been told the movement is late enough to miss the sweet spot of the bat. Additionally, because he throws from a low slot and gets so much run on his fastball and changeup, the cutter might have extra perceived cut by comparison. "Ty Duvall, one of our bullpen catchers who catches me every day, has given me that feedback before," Henderson said. "On paper, it might not look like it cuts a whole lot, but it's hard enough and late enough to where it's just the perfect amount of cut to be able to get guys off the four-seamer and miss the barrel with that last amount of cut." The next item on Henderson's checklist as a developing starter is length. He has completed six innings in just three of his 15 starts. It's not a matter of efficiency, but of durability. The Brewers have routinely pulled him after five innings with a pitch count at or below 85 pitches, citing pitch-tracking and biomechanical data showing that his stuff declines around that threshold. "Those things are all great goals to have, but you got to be able to maintain your stuff beyond that," Pat Murphy said in late July after Henderson expressed that he wanted to start working deeper into starts. The Brewers have since let him work into the sixth inning in two straight outings. They could give him more leash on Monday night, as running a six-man rotation during a stretch of 17 straight games without a day off has left them short-handed in a seven-man bullpen. However, Murphy also made clear that Henderson throwing his best stuff for five innings is better than pacing himself for seven. "I don't want him thinking about getting deeper in games and conserving pitches," Murphy said. "You've got to fight to get outs, man." Henderson is finally getting an extended opportunity to show that fight, and he's becoming a key cog in the middle of Milwaukee's rotation. "It has been good to get a little runway here to make a good stretch of starts," Henderson said. "Just trying to keep doing that moving forward."

When David Hamilton returned from the injured list amid hot streaks by Joey Ortiz and Cooper Pratt, Pat Murphy said the intention was to find playing time for all three, hinting that the Brewers would handle the left side of the infield with more nuance than a straight platoon between Hamilton and Ortiz at third base. However, since Hamilton's activation, he's started 10 of Milwaukee's 11 games against a right-handed starter. Ortiz, meanwhile, has drawn just one start at third base against a right-hander. His other two starts against righties have come at Pratt's expense at shortstop. It's the latest sign that the Brewers as an organization remain bullish on the athletic Hamilton's potential, even as he's made very few strides in harnessing that athleticism for more than a couple of plays or at-bats at a time. Earlier in the week, Murphy shed more light on how the Brewers are handling Ortiz. As they have with Andrew Vaughn, they're shielding him from right-handed arsenals with more horizontal movement. "It's a type of righty," Murphy said. "There are righties that have [a] great two-seam, great sweepers. You don't play Joey as much against them." Those east-west pitches, Murphy explained, can exploit recurring issues with Ortiz's front side as he strides toward the pitcher. After he gets busted inside with a two-seamer, he opens up early to cheat to it, leaving him unable to stay on a breaking ball moving away from him. "If you're one of those hitters where wherever the pitcher's going, your eyes go there and don't respond to the other side [of the plate], it's more that than it is [your swing]," Murphy said. "So the swing decisions are affected more when a guy's bearing in on you … You have to be way, way convicted on what you're going to do with that. But in Joey's case, he had that habit for a long time of just his front side going, because he wanted so much to get to how he was being attacked, and it didn't serve him." Statistically, that doesn't bear out cleanly. In 2026, Ortiz has fared a bit better against right-handed sinkers than right-handed four-seamers, and he's been passable against sweepers. In a much larger sample for his career, though, Ortiz has done his best work against more vertical right-handed pitches like four-seamers and curveballs, while struggling against sinkers, short sliders, and sweepers. The Brewers urge their hitters to take pitches they would struggle to hit before they get to two strikes. For Ortiz, that means keeping his focal point toward the outer third of the plate. His swing length is a bit longer (7.5 feet, according to Statcast) than the league average (7.3 feet), and his hands can sometimes lag behind the rest of his body when he opens up. Staying on pitches middle or away can help keep everything in sync. "Now he's understanding, 'I got to take that and rely on what I can [hit] out over,'" Murphy said. "Or when [the pitcher] mistakes the two-seamer [over the middle], it's staying closed and staying linear, so he can handle everything else." Bat tracking data reveals Ortiz's inconsistency in keeping himself closed on sweepers. His overall rate of early swings and flails away from the ball are both around the league average, but he's more prone to extreme flails and very early swings than the average right-handed hitter against a righty sweeper. Ortiz's last two starts against right-handers have come against Tyler Mahle and Bubba Chandler, both of whom lean mostly on four-seam fastballs without much arm-side run. That could change if he becomes more consistent against side-to-side right-handers, but as long as the Brewers continue to believe in Hamilton and the rest of the infield remains healthy, adhering to arsenal matchups will remain the playbook.

The Brewers’ biggest trade deadline deal was a four-player swap with the division-rival Cardinals on Monday afternoon. Milwaukee acquired veteran starter Dustin May and reliever JoJo Romero in exchange for outfield prospects Josiah Ragsdale and Alexander Frias. That looks at first glance like a steep return. Injuries have kept May from making good on the promise he showed as a young starter for the Dodgers, and his 4.38 ERA for St. Louis this year is nothing special. Romero is a solid middle reliever. Both are rentals who will be free agents after this season. Meanwhile, Ragsdale was Brewer Fanatic’s No. 16 prospect, while Frias appeared in FanGraphs’ Top 50 prospects in their latest midseason update. Several fans and pundits were quick to call that a clear overpay, but there’s more to dive into here. First, Ragsdale and Frias were both breakout prospects who remained beneath other outfielders on the organizational depth chart. The Brewers’ internal evaluations of both players are likely lower than the consensus. Second, May and Romero are great fits for Milwaukee’s pitching infrastructure with more upside than one might assume. May’s results with the Cardinals this year were unremarkable, but his 3.91 xERA, 3.14 FIP, and 93 DRA- all suggest he’s pitched like an above-average starter. Most importantly, his arsenal has improved this year. “The stuff is really electric,” president of baseball operations and general manager Matt Arnold said. “You saw what he did against us a couple weeks ago, and he was really, really good. He’s a guy that we’re happy to have on our side.” May has reintroduced a curveball and changeup this year to expand his secondary stuff, but the Brewers are almost certainly more interested in his fastballs significantly improving. He's always been a fastball-heavy pitcher, but when May returned from his second career elbow surgery last season, he couldn't get the same mileage out of his hard stuff. His four-seamer, sinker, and cutter combined for a poor -12 run value, prompting him to throw more breaking balls that he couldn't spot in the strike zone. This year, May is back to throwing more heaters, and his fastball run value has flipped to an elite +11. "My biggest thing is fastball execution," May said. "If I'm able to execute the fastballs, the offspeed stuff just plays off it, whether it's in the zone or not. So being able to kind of place the ball in and out is my biggest thing." In his prime, May approached 100 mph with his four-seamer and sinker, but his average velocity dipped to around 95 mph last year. This year, he’s back to sitting nearly 97 mph, and his cutter is at its highest velocity since 2020. It’s not just the velocity bump. May is also creating better angles with those three fastballs, allowing them to play off one another more effectively. He has raised his arm angle from 21 degrees to 34 degrees this year, which has added more than 2 inches of backspin carry to both his four-seamer and cutter, which also has more consistent glove-side movement. "I think going into the offseason, the biggest thing for me was kind of getting back to my old throw," May said. "So that was something that I really worked on, and I feel like I've kind of gotten back to a close version of my previous self, whether it be arm angle and slot and everything like that, just to be able to maximize the efficiency of my throw." The biggest piece to the puzzle, particularly for the Brewers, is May’s sinker. A higher arm slot raises the spin direction of a baseball, which is why May’s four-seamer and cutter now have more carry. It hasn’t affected his sinker, though, which has not lost any sink. That’s because May is generating more seam-shifted wake on the pitch. This seems to be because of his unique offset sinker grip, which orients the two seams in a way that creates a greater air pressure imbalance on each side of the ball as it spins toward home plate. Hitters look for spin to identify a pitch as it makes its way toward home plate. When they see the ball spinning in a certain direction, they use that spin to predict how the ball will move. This year, May is creating an even greater difference between how much hitters expect his sinker to sink based on its spin and how it actually sinks. Take a look at the two clock-like graphics below. In 2025, there was a clear difference in the direction May’s sinker would spin (the orange bars on the left) and how it would actually move (the orange bars on the right). The bars on the right were lower on the clock, meaning May’s sinker would move down and to the right more than it was spinning. This year, there’s an even greater difference between the spin and the movement. Because of his higher arm slot, May’s sinker is spinning more vertically, but it has just as much depth and horizontal movement. By getting the same amount of sink from a higher arm slot, it looks to the hitter like May’s ball is sinking even more than it did last year. His sinker’s vertical approach angle, which measures how “steep” a pitch looks to the hitter, has dropped from -5.28 degrees to -5.51 degrees this season. That means May’s sinker now ranks among the steepest in baseball. The bottom line is that all of May’s fastballs are behaving better. His four-seamer has more carry, his cutter has more cut, and his sinker looks like it has more sink. With those improved fastballs, May can throw three pitches with very similar spin out of his hand, but with very different movement. According to MLB Pitch Profiler, his proMax+ (a stat that measures how well a pitcher mixes different pitch shapes while making them look the same out of his hand) has jumped from 92 to 107. That makes May a perfect new toy for pitches coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson, who value tunneling three different fastballs off each other in the strike zone. With the Cardinals, May threw his sinker mostly to right-handers and his cutters mostly to left-handers, and he threw plenty of four-seamers to both sides. The Brewers could balance all three fastballs more evenly to both sides and bring May’s overall fastball usage closer to the 75% he averaged with the Dodgers years ago. Romero doesn’t have three fastballs, but his leading pitch is also a power sinker that averages just 0.9 inches of induced vertical break (a lower number means more sink). The southpaw has very little extension toward home plate. With a shorter stride, his body is more upright and further above the ground, which raises his release height and adds to his perceived sink. Aaron Ashby creates a similar effect with low extension, albeit from a much higher arm slot. Romero’s sinker has a -5.89 vertical approach angle, which is an elite -0.73 degrees steeper than expected from his release height and velocity. It’s gotten ground balls on at least 60% of batted balls in every year since 2021. There’s a reason why the Brewers felt comfortable giving up what they did to bring in two division-rival arms. At minimum, a healthy May should remain a reliable innings-eater. At best, he could dominate down the stretch with one of baseball’s best fastball combinations. When Romero returns from an appendectomy, he’ll give Pat Murphy a ground-ball specialist who can ease the strain on the team’s leverage relievers. Don’t be surprised if what looks like an overpay becomes a great value deal for Milwaukee.