Jack Stern

Image courtesy of Denis Poroy-Imagn Images With their slumping offense and weak pitching staff, the Chicago Cubs would have been a better NLDS matchup for the Brewers. Instead, they'll face the red-hot San Diego Padres, who disposed of the floundering Cubs with ease in the NL Wild Card Series. The Padres swept the then-injury-riddled Brewers in San Diego when the teams last met in August, but on paper, Milwaukee is the better team. Their offense is better (107 wRC+ vs. 102 wRC+). Their pitching staff is deeper. By Defensive Runs Saved, they've been better in the field. Even San Diego's bullpen might not be much better than Milwaukee's, but it's their undisputed strength and what makes them a greater threat than the Cubs. Padres relievers led all teams in fWAR during the regular season, thanks to their three-headed monster in the late innings. Closer Mason Miller led all relievers in fWAR; left-hander Adrian Morejon ranked fourth; and rookie Bradgley Rodriguez ranked 26th. The trio threw 4 ⅔ scoreless innings in the Wild Card Series and combined for 9 shutout frames against the Brewers this year. Grabbing early leads will be paramount in the five-game series, but at some point, the Brewers will probably have to make a dent in that bullpen. That's a daunting task, but Milwaukee's offense may be as equipped as any to wear down San Diego relievers. Many of the Padres' key relievers succeed by forcing opponents to expand the strike zone. Their bullpen ranked just 26th in zone rate, throwing 46.5% of pitches over the plate, but led baseball with a 32.4% chase rate. The arms the Brewers will see most in the next week—Miller, Morejon, Rodriguez, Jason Adam, and Yuki Matsui—are all chase merchants. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Reliever Zone% Chase% K% BB% Mason Miller 45.1% 36.1% 47.4% 9.6% Adrian Morejon 48.7% 38.3% 30.4% 8.0% Bradgley Rodriguez 48.9% 34.4% 26.9% 6.6% Yuki Matsui 42.6% 31.5% 26.2% 13.8% Jason Adam 46.1% 34.1% 15.5% 7.0% The Brewers, meanwhile, have been baseball's most patient offense for the second straight year. Their 26.6% chase rate this year was the lowest in baseball. That's because they emphasize swing decisions (and, specifically, the value of swinging only at hittable strikes) above all else. Swinging at the right pitches will be even more important in the postseason, where the Brewers will face some of the game's best pitching. "If you try to force something in this setting, it doesn't work, I don't think," Pat Murphy said earlier this week. "I think it is magnified, and I think we've got to double down even more on that ball-strike. You're facing the best pitchers, so the run expectancy is going to be down, right? So it becomes magnified." That's easier said than done, though. The Brewers chased 29.3% of pitches outside the zone against the Padres' bullpen this year, including a combined 30.5% chase rate against Miller, Morejon, and Rodriguez. All three rely heavily on their secondary stuff. Miller threw more sliders than fastballs this year; Morejon threw his changeup 36% of the time to right-handed batters; and Rodriguez threw his changeup 43% of the time. The Brewers are actually more selective against secondary pitches than most of the league, but like all teams, they chase those pitches more than they chase heaters, because they have more movement than fastballs. Furthermore, when pitchers attack the Brewers with non-fastballs, they go from one of baseball's best offenses to an average one. On a rate basis, their run value against fastballs was near the top, but they were middle-of-the-pack against breaking balls and changeups. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Pitch Group Run Value/100p Rank Fastballs 0.196 3rd Breaking 0.162 11th Offspeed 0.169 12th The Padres could also adjust their approach against a passive Milwaukee lineup. Facing the similarly patient Cubs on Wednesday night, Miller threw his fastball 63% of the time and tried to attack the zone more aggressively. The Brewers should be able to play the waiting game with Adam and Matsui, but Miller, Morejon, and Rodriguez all have good enough fastballs to live over the heart of the plate when they choose. {C}%3C!%2D%2Dtd%20%7Bborder%3A%201px%20solid%20%23cccccc%3B%7Dbr%20%7Bmso-data-placement%3Asame-cell%3B%7D%2D%2D%3E--> Reliever 4-Seam Stuff+ Sinker Stuff+ Mason Miller 105 Adrian Morejon 127 129 Bradgley Rodriguez 108 101 Yuki Matsui 96 94 Jason Adam 90 If the Brewers influence the Padres' best arms to throw more fastballs for strikes, they must be ready to attack. That wasn't always the case in the regular season; their 69% swing rate on fastballs in the heart of the zone was the second-lowest in baseball. When they did swing at those pitches, though, their 0.855 run value per 100 pitches ranked second. With better starting pitchers and a better overall lineup, the Brewers should be able to gain an upper hand on the Padres. Once San Diego goes to the bullpen, it will be strength against strength. The series may hinge on the Brewers forcing Padres relievers to change their approach and taking advantage of more in-zone fastballs than most teams get. View full article

Image courtesy of Bill Streicher-Imagn Images Shane Drohan ended his season where he found the most success as a rookie: the bullpen. The 27-year-old was a full-time starter from June through the second week of September, but he excelled as a long reliever in May, and three of his last four outings came out of the bullpen. He posted a 1.47 ERA, 2.44 xERA, 2.19 FIP, and 19.8% strikeout-minus-walk percentage in 14 relief appearances, and he projects as a multi-inning bullpen weapon for the Brewers in the postseason. A starter for most of his baseball life, Drohan now feels just as comfortable in the bullpen. Middle relievers never know when they might be called into a game and must be ready at a moment's notice. That experience taught the meticulous Drohan that he can succeed without a strict, delicately timed pregame routine. "I learned that I don't need as much pregame or a neurotic routine to succeed," he said. "I felt like being in the bullpen really taught me that. I throw three to four hours before the game, and then you're just sitting in there, and then the phone rings, and you get to go in. It's eight to 12 pitches, and you're in the game. If you would have asked me that a couple years ago, because I'd been starting my whole life, I would have been like, 'No way.'" Converted starters often benefit from emphasizing their two best pitches in shorter relief outings. For Drohan, those pitches have been his riding four-seam fastball and his tight, gyro-spin slider, which posted the highest run values in his arsenal this year. Opponents managed just a .278 wOBA against his four-seamer and a .218 wOBA against his slider. The Brewers took the opposite approach, though: throwing Drohan's worst pitch more. Early in the year, they added a sinker as a secondary fastball to help him pitch to both sides of the plate. It didn't work. The sinker's -6 run value made it Drohan's least effective pitch, and opponents slugged a whopping .762 against it in August. Yet, the Brewers doubled down, making the sinker his new primary fastball in September instead of the dominant four-seamer. More accurately, the Brewers didn't double down on a bad pitch, but on a bad pitch that was improving. Throughout the year, Drohan has steadily slashed the induced vertical break of his sinker (for fastballs, a higher number indicates more carry, and a lower number means more sink) and added more arm-side run. That made the sinker an effective fastball in September, the first month since May in which it posted a positive run value. Month IVB HB SLG Run Value April 9.9 16.2 .667 0 May 8.9 15.8 .385 1 June 8.1 14.5 .633 -2 July 7.8 16.7 .571 -2 Aug 7.3 17.3 .762 -5 Sept 6.6 18.2 .350 2 "I feel like now it's like a true sinker, with a good amount of run," Drohan said. "I feel like the last couple weeks, it's been running a lot." In a five-out save in Sunday's regular-season finale, all 13 of Drohan's fastballs were sinkers. A few were among his heaviest sinkers of the season, including this first-pitch sinker to Nolan Gorman with 5.5 inches of induced vertical break and 19.4 inches of arm-side run: QXc3ZU9fWGw0TUFRPT1fVlFBSEJsRU5WUVFBQ2xJSFZnQUhDUUJmQUZsUVZRSUFWbFVOQ0ZGVUNRY0VWZ0pl.mp4 There are a few ways to throw an effective sinker, each utilizing a different combination of spin rate and spin direction. Most pitchers run their fingers parallel to the baseball's two narrow seams and cut the ball enough to create seam-shifted wake, an imbalance of air pressure on each side of the ball that pushes it down and to the arm side. Others who keep their hand behind the ball through release rotate it to a one-seam grip to create that imbalance. The rarest option is pronating with a standard two-seam grip to produce screwball-like spin, which doesn't need seam-shifted wake to create a sinker shape. Drohan's hand doesn't work in any of those ways. He can't pronate. He naturally cuts his fastball ever so slightly, but not enough to create significant seam-shifted wake. That meant finding the right grip took time. Drohan originally used a one-seam grip, which didn't create much movement and made him overthink how he was releasing the ball. He unlocked the extra sink after switching to a traditional two-seam orientation during the second half—which coincided with a dropping of his arm slot. That's changed the spin direction on the sinker out of his hand, in concert with the grip adjustment. "I felt like when I was doing [the one-seam] grip, I was trying to find the right wrist position for it, and then when I went to the traditional two-seam, it just went," he said. There's just one change from a standard two-seamer: Drohan isn't touching any seams. That's because he has long fingers, which let him snap off the seams to generate high spin rates on all of his pitches. That spin creates carry on his four-seamer and sharp downward bite on his breaking balls, but Drohan wants his sinker to spin less so that it sinks more. He runs his pointer and middle fingers between the two seams so they touch only the white of the ball. "I feel like it just lines up with my long-ass fingers better like that," Drohan said. "The pitches that you want to kill vert, for me at least, I've always felt more comfortable the less seams I feel." The early version of Drohan's sinker was effectively a worse version of his four-seamer. It had slightly more run, allowing him to pitch lefties inside, but its induced vertical break was just a couple of inches off his main fastball. Its movement sat between the carry of the four-seamer and the depth of a true sinker, making it a very flat fastball that played right into hitters' swing paths. Now, the sinker has more separation as a distinct fastball that can miss barrels. Below, note the greater space between the red and orange clusters on the righthand graph. It's also become the pitch he commands best, which is the biggest reason he's throwing it more. Drohan's four-seam command and shape deteriorated throughout the summer, culminating in a .754 wOBA and 3 home runs against it in September. Its induced vertical break averaged a season-low 13.5 inches. Meanwhile, he threw his improved sinker in the strike zone 64% of the time, the highest rate in his arsenal. Even though his sinker became more consistent down the stretch, Drohan's four-seamer still flashed more upside, and he'll need it to be his best self in the postseason. Opponents still hit his sinker at an average exit velocity of 92.9 mph in September. According to Statcast bat tracking, they made more perfect contact (swings that were on time with the barrel aligned with the ball) against it than the four-seamer, which is still a swing-and-miss pitch at the top of the zone. FanGraphs's Stuff+ model also rates the four-seamer as the slightly superior fastball. Pitch Type Perfect Contact% Perfect Contact% (MLB Avg) Whiff% Stuff+ Sinker 39% 29% 18% 108 Four-Seamer 20% 24% 25% 109 Drohan began the regular season as a four-seam guy. He ended it as a sinker guy. In October, he needs to be both. "We'll see what happens," Drohan said, regarding his pitch usage in the postseason. "I've always been a four-seam guy, but it's kind of a cool surprise to see that I can throw both, which is tougher for the hitter." View full article

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect On the first workout day of their weeklong bye before the NLDS, the Brewers didn't play a game-like scrimmage. That was by design. "Don't try to contrive or recreate real at-bats, because you're not going to get those," Pat Murphy said on Tuesday afternoon. Instead of replicating a game, the Brewers held a specialty workout, deliberately dialing down the intensity to work on some of the basics. Even though September was the club's winningest month of the regular season, Murphy felt his players were slipping on executing fundamentals. Outclassing opponents at the little things has been integral to their regular-season success. "Let's work on some fundamental things," Murphy said. "Let's work on some specific things, and we'll go from there." And so, while Grant Anderson and Logan Henderson threw live at-bats to select hitters with no defenders, a rotation of baserunners worked with Spencer Allen on leads and jumps at first base, an area where Murphy said he wanted improvement. The workout lasted about one hour. The other reason for starting slowly was that the Brewers needed a break. Like most teams, they're banged up after six months of baseball. Jake Bauers has been playing through shin splints and a fractured toe; Joey Ortiz is dealing with an abdominal strain and a knee contusion; and Cooper Pratt and Andrew Vaughn are recovering from illness. Jacob Misiorowski, Henderson, and Shane Drohan are among the pitchers who set career highs in innings pitched. A few days to get guys off their feet is a luxury the Brewers earned by winning a franchise-record 103 games. "I didn't feel like we limped to the finish line, but, you know, it's 162 games," Drohan said. "Everybody's going through something, so I feel like these couple days off are going to be huge for us, so we can just come out of the gate firing." Taking greater advantage of the time off could be key for the Brewers, who ran out of steam in last year's NLCS sweep against the Dodgers. To make a deeper postseason run, they'll need to have enough left in the tank through October. "We're planning on being the team that no one expected that's going to continue to win, but learning from what we did last year -- the emotional series that we had in the division series, knowing that we got to recover and be ready," Murphy said. "Then we lose a game, Game 1 against the Dodgers, and just didn't recover the way I'd like to." The challenge is striking the balance that makes the bye week an asset, not a detriment. Statistically, there's no evidence that the bye disrupts a team's momentum and leaves them rusty for the start of the NLDS. Last year's Brewers roared out of the gates with a 9-3 victory in Game 1 over the Cubs and eventually won the series. Still, baseball is a mental game, and there's a perceived danger in letting off the gas pedal too far. The Brewers will progress to more intense workouts by the end of the week. "For years, I've heard managers and players say, 'That layoff killed us. We just got out of our rhythm.' That's real. That could happen," Murphy said. "But it really comes down to the ballplayers, and it comes down to their understanding, their awareness, and their willingness to say, 'Look, I've got to stay on.' Today, maybe not, but probably starting [Wednesday]." "We kind of experienced this a little bit last year, so we know what we might need to get better at," Brice Turang said. "Just having full trust in what Murph wants to do, and then mentally just being prepared to go." For Misiorowski, the week off won't look much different. By starting him in the regular-season finale on Sunday, the Brewers lined him up to pitch Game 1 on Saturday on the five days of rest he received for most of the year. "For myself, it's going to be pretty normal," Misiorowski said. "I'm going to be doing my normal stuff [the days] between, so it's going to be normal rest." The downtime also gives the Brewers a few more days to evaluate roster candidates. That includes Kyle Harrison, whose stuff bounced back over his final few outings but with mixed results. Given his upside, the Brewers seem likely to take that decision all the way up to the buzzer, and how he looks in his side work during the bye could influence whether he makes the cut as a reliever. "That last outing meant something," Murphy said. "It was leverage. So yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing what this week brings. It's not a tryout, but we're looking for consistency, the secondary stuff to be consistent. I think he could definitely grab a spot here." The Brewers' most important games lie ahead. This week is about best positioning themselves to succeed when the lights turn back on. "I think the vibes in here are great," Drohan said. "I think everybody's appreciating these couple days off." View full article

Image courtesy of Bill Streicher-Imagn ImagesBill Streicher-Imagn Images Since the start of the 2017 season, the Milwaukee Brewers have the fourth-most regular-season wins in baseball and the second-most in the National League. Their only losing season during that time was 2020, when they finished two games under .500—and 2020 doesn't count. The Brewers have made the postseason in eight of their last nine seasons, winning six division titles during that span. Remarkably, their mastery of the regular season keeps improving. Milwaukee set a new franchise record with 97 wins last year, and on Thursday night in Philadelphia, they reached 100 wins for the first time in franchise history. Shortly afterward, they clinched baseball’s best record and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs for the second straight season. Some of that is the Pat Murphy effect. With an aggressive approach both on and off the field throughout the regular season, Murphy squeezes a few extra wins out of his roster that other managers might not. It’s debatable whether that’s the best long-term strategy, but there is no denying that the Brewers have become an even greater regular-season powerhouse with Murphy at the helm. The biggest difference, though, is that the current Brewers teams are more well-rounded and better constructed to outlast other teams over 162 games. The late-2010s and early-2020s teams got creative to compete. The 2018 and 2019 Brewers added the best available players in trades and free agency regardless of fit, maximizing awkward rosters with bullpen games and defensive positioning. From 2021 through 2023, they tried to make up for poor offenses with elite starting rotations. Now, the Brewers are good at almost everything. According to FanGraphs, over the last two seasons, they’re fifth in wRC+, first in baserunning runs, sixth in Defensive Runs Saved, and second in pitching WAR based on runs allowed per nine innings (RA9-WAR). By building deep rosters and trading aging talent for controllable players, they can replace injured and underperforming guys with more productive alternatives. For all the talk of Milwaukee playing a unique brand of baseball in the modern age, there is no particular “Brewers way” in which they win games. They’re simply better than most teams in nearly every facet of the game. “Everybody thinks we play different than everybody else,” Murphy said in Philadelphia earlier this week. “I don’t really see that all that much.” Perhaps the difference lies neither in style nor in roster construction, but in what they accept—and what they refuse to. A few minutes later, Murphy ran through a list of ways in which he’s not satisfied with his team’s play in recent weeks. On the bases, Murphy wants the Brewers to improve their leads at first. In the field, he’s been unimpressed by how they’re completing plays. On the mound, he wants pitchers to hold runners and guard their pitches more effectively. The Brewers will use their bye week to clean those things up before the postseason. Getting over the hump in October is the next hurdle. Despite their regular-season success, the Brewers remain one of five active teams that have not won a World Series. They face real challenges in getting there this year. Will their offense, which ranks 28th in home runs, have enough big swings against elite pitching? How will the starting rotation perform behind Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson? Both point toward the same larger question: the Brewers are built to excel over 162 games, but are they built to handle the hottest and most talented teams in shorter samples? Until the Brewers answer that question with a championship, they’re still falling short of their ultimate goal. Calling any non-championship season a failure is reductive, though. To win the World Series, you must get into the postseason. If the Brewers keep doing that every year, they’ll win it all sooner, rather than later. The regular season means something, and they do it better than any other team. View full article

Image courtesy of James A. Pittman-Imagn Images Tuesday night’s series opener in Philadelphia was winnable for the Brewers, but their pitching was shaky, and the offense couldn’t break through with enough timely hits against Zack Wheeler and the Phillies bullpen. Even so, it was a productive night, as Milwaukee secured a first-round playoff bye to the NLDS thanks to Atlanta's loss to Cincinnati. Even though that clinch was pending at first pitch, it explains how the Brewers handled their pitching last night. They’re still playing for baseball’s best record to secure home-field advantage for the entire postseason, but now that they’re guaranteed to play in the NLDS, managing for that series is the focus. Maximizing wins each night isn’t the priority in the final week of the regular season—even if Pat Murphy stopped short of saying as much. “These are games to win,” Murphy said on Tuesday afternoon. “I don’t see any other way to do it. It just doesn’t feel right inside if you’re not playing to win.” In practice, though, the Brewers are clearly striking a balance. After making a few decisions here and there geared toward October, they’ve shifted further into planning mode on this road trip, using what’s left of the schedule to line up their pitching staff for the NLDS. Jacob Misiorowski made a purposely shortened start on Sunday. That means he can start ramping back up with a more normal-length start on Saturday, allowing for a no-restrictions outing in Game 1. After that, the Brewers pushed Logan Henderson back to Wednesday so they could give Dustin May a truncated outing as another opportunity to get him on track. “It's simple. We want to give him as many outings as we can,” Murphy said pregame. “Probably won't be an extended outing, but it's still a chance to go out back out there and pitch, and just kind of solidify how he wants to do things. He keeps adjusting to his new environment, and we all got to get on the same page. And he wants to jump back out there, and it works out perfect for us.” One area May and the Brewers must still solidify, Murphy said, is his pitch mix. Since coming to Milwaukee at the trade deadline, May has predictably upped his fastball usage from 66.7% to 73.4%, including in two-strike counts. That makes more sense for him than for other pitchers, since May’s fastballs are his strength, but it could be making it harder to put hitters away. Since the trade, hitters own a .939 OPS against him with two strikes. “I think he's starting to see, like, ‘Well, I got to slow these right-handers down a little bit. I can't just go fastball-cutter, fastball-cutter.’ You know what I mean?” Murphy said. “I'm starting to see that. And he's going through what pitchers go through.” The hurdle is finding a put-away breaking ball, particularly to right-handed hitters. May’s sweeper hasn’t done the job. It’s been great against left-handers this season, but righties have slugged .467 against it with just an 18.1% whiff rate. Since the trade, it’s induced zero whiffs from a righty. The Brewers want him to throw his curveball to righties instead, which May started doing in his last two outings. “It's been a good pitch for him, the sweeper to lefties, and the sweeper to righties has not been a good pitch,” Murphy said. “The [cutter] has been more of a swing-and-miss pitch to righties, but you got to have more than everything's hard. You just got to come up with that slower pitch.” May threw just two curveballs in his 36 pitches Tuesday night, and neither was competitive. The first was a ball low and outside to Trea Turner, and the second bounced in the dirt and nearly hit Brandon Marsh on an 0-2 count. After that, May came back with a front-hip sinker, and Marsh turned on it for a two-run home run. “Maybe I could have executed a little higher, but we were trying to go front-hip, so I feel like I executed it pretty well,” a frustrated May said afterward. “But obviously, it wasn’t the right pitch call or pitch execution, whatever it was.” May’s velocity and movement have been just as good in Milwaukee as they were in St. Louis, his hard-hit rate is lower, and his strikeout rate is only one percentage point lower. Yet, the frustrating sequences continue, and May sounded (after another disappointing outing) like a pitcher lost for answers. “I’m just going to do what I’m told at this point,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’ve pitched my way into having a say in anything, so I’m just going to do whatever they tell me.” All indications are that the Brewers still plan to use May as one of their three postseason starters, although they could use an opener in front of him. Given his stuff and veteran experience, that’s probably the correct call. That means they’ll keep giving him opportunities to get right before the NLDS. “When you’re fighting through all of this, you’re trying to be perfect, and he got two innings to do it,” Murphy said. “I still have great confidence in him.” It’s a similar story for Kyle Harrison, who fittingly followed May out of the bullpen on Tuesday. Unlike May, Harrison is hardly a guarantee to make a playoff roster at this point, but he has slowly progressed in the right direction. For the second straight outing, his fastball behaved like its effective self, averaging 95.1 MPH with 16 inches of induced vertical break. However, Harrison’s location was still problematic, and he gave up a run on three hits. “The properties of the fastball seemed like they were better,” Murphy said. “Now you got to command it. And then the secondary stuff wasn’t as sharp again.” After Harrison’s inning, Colton Gordon pitched the final five in long relief. After the Brewers tied things at 3-3 in the sixth, Murphy stuck with Gordon instead of using his high-leverage relievers. It nearly worked out, but Gordon allowed three two-out runs in the eighth on four straight hits. His real job was to eat innings, though. “He can pitch,” Murphy said. “Very impressed.” It was a departure from Murphy’s usual aggressive “Win Tonight” approach, but it was the responsible decision. Before Monday’s day off, five relievers had pitched in three of the last five days, and the Brewers recalled Gordon specifically for this kind of outing. They can still take the next two games of the series and push for the top seed while keeping the rest of their relievers to more manageable workloads the rest of the week. That’s a luxury they’ve earned, just like the luxury of trying to help May and Harrison right the ship in games. “We’re going to keep running those guys out there and see if we can’t get them on track,” Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Kyle Harrison is effectively out of the Brewers' postseason rotation mix, and he probably has been for nearly two weeks. He made his last traditional start on September 6, after which the Brewers pivoted to a different approach for getting him back on track. The hope was that more side work and pitching out of the bullpen could reset Harrison, who needed to prove that he was postseason-ready in any capacity. Harrison appeared in relief last Saturday against the Reds, then made a truncated start on Thursday against the Pirates after the Brewers clinched the NL Central. His fastball velocity ticked back up, averaging north of 95 miles per hour in both outings after dipping to 93.6 MPH since his return from the injured list. Unfortunately, it also lost some of the movement that made it great. For the season, Harrison's fastball averaged 14.7 inches of induced vertical break. That number measures how much less his ball drops on its way to home plate due to backspin, which the hitter perceives as the "rise" that makes a fastball difficult to get on top of up in the zone. It was down to 13.9 inches in his relief appearance and 13.8 inches on Thursday. Both outings went poorly. Harrison failed to record an out against the Reds, while allowing four hits, including two hard-hit balls on fastballs. Against the Pirates, he couldn't get out of the second inning and induced just one whiff with his heater. The most telling at-bats were Konnor Griffin doubling on an inside 97-MPH fastball and Oneil Cruz singling on a 96-MPH fastball at the top of the zone, both with two strikes. Both were well-located pitches that once produced near-automatic outs for Harrison, but because his fastball lacked its usual carry, they were hittable. While Chris Hook and company have been working hard with Harrison to rediscover that livelier fastball, they also seem to be preparing for life without it. They've slid him even further toward the first-base edge of the rubber than they did at the start of the year, perhaps hoping to give Harrison's fastball an even more extreme angle across the zone for more deception. They're also emphasizing his secondaries more. Harrison has thrown his fastball less than 50% of the time in just three outings this year. Two of those times were in his last three outings, including Thursday's start. His slurve (which has typically had a big, loopy shape and only serves to get early swings when hitters sit on the fastball) has been slightly shorter in these last two outings. Harrison also threw his first cutter of the season on Thursday. Needing the secondaries to rescue his diminished fastball contributed to Harrison's downfall. He threw just 33% of his breaking balls and 14% of his changeups in the zone. After Cruz's single, he hit Bryan Reynolds with a changeup, then walked Rafael Flores Jr. and hit Brandon Lowe, both on slurves. Neither has been an in-zone pitch for Harrison all year, so asking them to fill that role now won't work. Reintroducing the cutter is also alarming. Because his hand struggles to work around the ball from his low arm slot, Harrison's cutter was a poor pitch last year. The Brewers scrapped it in spring training, knowing it was unnecessary if they could maximize his fastball. Reversing course suggests neither Harrison nor his coaches believe his heater is still good enough to be his only in-zone pitch. Pat Murphy said after Harrison's outing that the Brewers will give him more opportunities to get right. Whether he starts another game or pitches out of the bullpen has yet to be determined. It's the right call. While the Brewers have not yet secured baseball's top postseason seed, they have a six-game lead over Atlanta for a first-round bye. There's not much to lose compared to the upside of getting Harrison right, and if things click, it might not take much to prove he's back to form. The space between success and failure is thin for any pitcher, but it's especially thin for Harrison. At his best, he backspins his fastball with conviction and leans on it heavily. A small mechanical flaw can quickly turn that fastball from elite to average, and when that happens, the rest of his arsenal doesn't hold up. When mechanical issues have hurt Jacob Misiorowski's fastball, he's fallen back on a cutter and two great breaking balls. Harrison could be less out of whack than Misiorowski, but his effectiveness would suffer more. Harrison's velocity has increased while his movement has decreased, suggesting he's not generating that velocity correctly. He might be trying too hard to artificially create energy in his delivery by moving quickly, rather than creating it efficiently from the ground up. Metrically, Harrison's extension in September is the lowest it's been since April. More notably, his release height has increased by several inches, even though his arm slot has been no higher than his season average. Harrison has drop-and-drive mechanics, meaning he lowers his weight into his back leg before pushing off the rubber toward home plate. A higher release point suggests he's not dropping enough. Both stills below are taken from the final frame before Harrison starts driving forward. The left still is from late May, and the right is from his relief appearance against the Reds. On the left, Harrison is a bit less upright and slightly further into that back leg. On the right, Harrison is also moving quicker, and his stride is slightly less crossfire. The earlier delivery was free and easy, but the newer version looks more exaggerated, as if Harrison is trying too hard to move like his best self. The parts that should have more movement to create torque have become shorter. harrison.mp4 Those small differences could explain the change to his fastball shape. To backspin his fastball, Harrison's hand must be directly behind the baseball at release and work through it. That's what creates the pitch's carry. If his arm drags behind through that sped-up delivery, his hand will have a harder time reaching that position. On Thursday, Harrison worked exclusively out of the stretch. He came set more closed off with his hands further down toward his belt, adjustments that he told reporters were geared toward recapturing some of that crossfire stride. Those changes didn't work. Harrison needs something to click mechanically that syncs up his body so he can backspin the ball with velocity. If that happens, his early-season dominance will return as quickly as it left. The Brewers know that he's still just one or two good outings away from meriting a spot in their playoff bullpen. Time is running out, though, and with each attempted adjustment, Harrison risks drifting further away from what made him one of baseball's best pitchers in the first half. View full article

Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Since the Brewers acquired him from the Rockies at the trade deadline, Antonio Senzatela's tenure with his new team has gone poorly. In 18 appearances, many of them in high-leverage situations, the right-hander has pitched to a 6.48 ERA, 5.55 xERA, and 4.79 SIERA with a poor 2.7% strikeout-minus-walk percentage. From Daniel Norris to Andrew Chafin to Shelby Miller, Milwaukee's recent deadline relief acquisitions have an infamous track record. Even relievers with excellent stuff and strong peripherals at the time of a trade have pitched far worse after joining the Brewers. At this point, Senzatela's regular-season performance will not break that trend, but not for a lack of effort. "I think we're still cracking the shell a little bit," pitching coordinator Jim Henderson said a couple of weeks ago. "We've made some adjustments." Matt Trueblood recently broke down those adjustments, which have been a typical Brewersification. With the Rockies, Senzatela threw his four-seamer 40% of the time as his leading pitch, but the Brewers immediately converted him to their preferred sinker and cutter sequencing to both sides of the plate. They also moved him to the first-base side of the rubber, which makes that sinker easier to command and helps it enter the zone at a more deceptive angle. The pitch mix change made sense, as the sinker is Senzatela's slightly better fastball, particularly away from Coors Field. He naturally cuts the ball at release and doesn't generate much spin, which usually limits the movement of a four-seamer but can create more seam-shifted sink on a two-seamer. Even after accounting for the Colorado altitude and his arm slot, Senzatela's four-seamer has less carry than average, while his sinker has more sink. "We believe in good process of a pitch, and we believe that if he does that and keeps the ball in the ballpark with our defense, we're going to have success with it," Henderson said. "So we're kind of leaning into [the sinker and cutter] a bit more." The move to the first-base side wasn't just about improving the overall angle of Senzatela's sinker. Henderson said it was also an attempt at making him more platoon-neutral. From the first-base side, the Brewers believed Senzatela could better execute front-door sinkers to lefties. They also felt the more extreme angle would freeze more lefties on back-door cutters that come back to the outside corner. "We're just looking for more freezes, just to track a little bit better and get in there, and, if you have the eyes of a hitter, not being able to track him the whole way so much," Henderson said. Senzatela's stuff would always benefit from leaving Coors Field, but the Brewers have helped it level up further. They've tightened his delivery and worked on landing more firmly with his front foot, allowing his hand to work on top of the ball. Those tweaks have contributed to a velocity bump, and they've given his sinker more depth (lower induced vertical break) and more arm-side run. In recent outings, he's gotten that sinker as low as 3 inches of IVB and as high as 18 inches of horizontal break. Team Sinker MPH Sinker IVB Sinker HB Sinker Stuff+ COL 96.0 7.1 12.9 99 MIL 97.2 6.4 14.6 105 "We're just trying to keep him a little bit tighter with delivery," Henderson said. "If you get through the ground and you have a tight rotation and you get your hand in the right spot, hopefully you can manipulate the ball any way you want. So just trying to get him through his heel, a little bit better posture, so that his hand can work out here. If he gets on his toe, then he starts losing his hand, and that's where he sees the runners instead of the sinkers." It's all sound in theory. In practice, it isn't working. Senzatela's fastballs are his bread and butter, but as he's mixed those heaters differently and thrown more fastballs overall, their effectiveness has flipped. Team Fastball% FB xSLG FB Run Value FB Run Value/100p COL 80.4% .332 5 0.798 MIL 94.1% .422 -3 -0.951 Regressed command is a big part of the problem. Senzatela's Location+ (a metric that measures whether pitches were thrown to locations that produce the best results) has dropped from 108 as a Rockie to 94 as a Brewer. His in-zone rate has decreased from 50.1% to 44.9%, and his walk rate has jumped from 7.8% to 10.8%. Throwing more fastballs hasn't helped. Since the start of August, Senzatela's 94.1% fastball usage effectively leads all pitchers to throw at least 250 total pitches (only Jose Alvardo is higher, but what's labeled his cutter has the velocity and movement of a slider). Only fellow Brewer Chad Patrick and Jonathan Pintaro are in the same realm. The difference is that Patrick and Pintaro are mixing in plenty of four-seamers, so their high fastball usage consists of three different iterations. Senzatela is throwing mostly sinkers and cutters and only flashing the occasional four-seamer with two strikes. Patrick and Pintaro change eye levels with their fastballs. Their four-seamers have more carry and create a different look at the top of the zone. Because his sinker and cutter have identical depth, Senzatela is currently showing the same vertical movement with roughly 85% of his pitches. Even though Senzatela's sinker and cutter move in opposite directions horizontally, going all-in on that pairing has allowed hitters to sit on a tight velocity and vertical movement range. They know they're getting something hard, and they know it will have some sink. Most of hitting is timing, and disrupting that timing is how a pitcher avoids barrels. Senzatela was doing that with the Rockies. According to Statcast bat tracking, hitters were on time with only 64% of swings against his three fastballs, well below the league average of 74% against fastballs. They were late on 34% of fastball swings, one of the highest rates in baseball. As a Brewer, hitters have been on time with 74% of swings against Senzatela's fastballs – exactly the league average. They've made him the most extreme fastball pitcher in baseball, and it's allowed opponents to time him up. Senzatela's whiff rate as a Brewer is still 22.1%, a decrease of only two percentage points since the trade, which speaks to how dominant the sinker-cutter pairing can be. The sinker has also boosted his ground ball rate. However, his strikeout rate has cratered to 13.5% with Milwaukee. "I think that's the only thing that's missing right now, is just to try to find a little more whiff," Henderson said. Those strikeouts are hard to find while throwing 94% fastballs. "He's went to more sinker-cutter, sinker-cutter-curveball, and I think that when you're a sinkerball guy and you're throwing hard and people know you're coming at them, you're going to give up contact," Pat Murphy said on Sunday afternoon, after Senzatela allowed a go-ahead three-run home run in another fastball-only outing. Let's be clear: Senzatela should throw lots of fastballs. Public stuff models see his curveball as a fine pitch, but it has clear limitations. It's a low-spin breaking ball, and he struggles to throw it for strikes. Senzatela noticeably raises his arm slot (the blue line in the graphic below) so he can get on top and in front of the ball. The solution is not to throw this many fastballs, though. Even if Senzatela's curveball isn't a great pitch, it still shows the hitter a necessary change of speed. The Brewers have been working on his breaking pitches during his daily flatground work, but Henderson said the extreme fastball usage isn't just an attempt to get by until the breaking stuff improves to their liking. "I think we're just leaning into his strength," Henderson said. "I don't think it's necessarily just trying to get away [without a good breaking ball]. But, you know, we have our systems." At this extreme, Senzatela's strength has become a weakness. His most recent outings have hinted that tempering his fastball usage could improve his effectiveness. After throwing 122 straight fastballs starting on August 25, Senzatela threw three curveballs in a scoreless inning against the Cubs last week. After Alex Bregman saw a curveball in the dirt, he fouled off a sinker on a late swing, then flew out to left field on a cutter. After Michael Busch saw two straight curveballs for balls, he whiffed and grounded out on two straight sinkers, both late swings. On Saturday against the Reds, Senzetela threw four curveballs in another scoreless inning with a strikeout. One was a hard Ke'Bryan Hayes lineout to left. Dane Myers then saw three straight curveballs, swinging well in front of the third one and popping out to right. On Sunday, all eight of Senzatela's pitches were fastballs. Sal Stewart punched a cutter back up the middle for a single, then Eugenio Suarez drove a sinker to right-center for that go-ahead homer. Without a threat of the breaking ball, his electric stuff doesn't flourish. "We want him to mix in some of the slower stuff, for sure, but I can't tell you the exact difference in the contact quality," Pat Murphy said. The Brewers will need Senzatela to record big outs in October, particularly if they deploy bullpen games behind Jacob Misiorowski and Logan Henderson. He's capable of that, but he needs the right pitch mix for things to fall into place. Even bringing his fastball usage down to 85% could be the difference between a dominant Senzatela and one who is easy for great hitters to time up in key situations. "I think he's got a definite role for our team," Murphy said. View full article

Image courtesy of Michael McLoone-Imagn Images In a 20-0 blowout win over the Reds that made the Brewers the first National League team to secure a playoff berth this season, a few inconsequential add-on runs stood out the most to Pat Murphy. After a William Contreras RBI single gave the Brewers a 13-0 lead in the fifth inning, Christian Yelich and Jake Bauers struck out. It had already been a productive night and a productive inning, and it seemed the scoring might finally be subsiding. Murphy had seen this movie before. On Wednesday against the Cubs, after his offense scored seven runs in the first three innings, it managed just two baserunners the rest of the way, one of whom reached on an error. Failing to add on nearly proved costly in the ninth, as the tying run came to the plate for Chicago after Brandon Sproat’s meltdown. Afterward, Murphy praised those early at-bats, but criticized his hitters for easing off the gas pedal with poor process. It wasn’t a problem this time. With two outs and a runner on first, Luis Lara roped a first-pitch single into right field. Cooper Pratt saw four of five pitches from Luis Mey well outside the zone and remained selective to draw a walk. With the bases suddenly loaded, Garrett Mitchell blasted a 3-1 pitch for the Brewers’ first grand slam of the season. Instead of a four-run inning, it was an eight-run frame. “It's insignificant to a lot. We're already up in the game a bunch,” Murphy said. “Strikeout, strikeout, and then we went base hit, walk, homer, base hit.” Those continued quality at-bats are what Murphy wants to see in the postseason. For the eighth time in nine seasons and for the fourth year in a row, the Brewers will play meaningful October baseball. “I think you have to appreciate it,” Murphy said. “I’m grateful that I’m part of a group, that I have the type of personnel and the type of people that live up to these expectations, live up to the standards, and are very serious about it.” Because the postseason has become the standard in Milwaukee, the celebration has become more subdued. The Brewers no longer pop champagne bottles until they clinch the division, which could also happen this weekend. “The Chicago White Sox, when they clinch a playoff berth this year, they're going to go crazy, and they should, because they did an incredible job coming from where they came from,” Murphy said. “We've been kind of steady for a while, and we want to just keep going. We want to see how far we can go and how complete this can be.” Instead, Murphy gave a private postgame toast in which he focused on members of the club’s support staff. “Him calling out the guys behind the scenes,” Brice Turang said. “Obviously, everyone sees the players, and they don’t always see the guys behind the scenes. The trainers, the weight coaches, the chefs, stuff like that.” “It matters that we’re a team, but everybody contributes, and everybody gets recognized for this, because it doesn’t just happen because you have good players,” Murphy said. After that, it was a normal postgame clubhouse. Players quietly filed out of the room as they do after a normal regular season win. That’s because the Brewers have not accomplished their final goal of winning a World Series. “We’ve still got a lot more to go,” Garrett Mitchell said. “This is just the beginning.” During this otherwise successful run, the Brewers have not gone very far in October. Their win over the Cubs in last year’s NLDS was their first postseason series win since 2018. The run ended unceremoniously with a sweep at the hands of the Dodgers in the NLCS. Murphy wants this group, which includes many returners from that team, to let that failure motivate them to bring their best deeper into the fall. The standard has been raised. “This isn't enough for this group in there. They want more,” Murphy said. “They remember last year. They want more.” That’s why he circled the second half of an eight-run fifth inning on his scorecard. The Brewers already did something impressive. They could have stopped at a 13-0 lead, especially after a few unsuccessful at-bats, but they didn’t. That’s what they’ll have to do in the postseason to get further than last year against elite pitching, when the runs are not coming easily. In last year's NLCS, they ran out of steam and stopped punching. “You just got to stay in the fight, stay in the process, stay in the now, and good things can happen,” Murphy said. “When you get that realization as a team, then you realize, ‘Hey, we can score at any time.’ Down three, that's not the end of the world.” “We all know what the end goal is, and that's what we're chasing,” Turang said. “So this is a small little step, and we just enjoy it tonight, and then tomorrow we go out and try to win a game.” View full article

Image courtesy of Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images Brandon Sproat’s audition for a postseason bullpen role did not go well. In fact, it went so poorly that it might be a one-and-done opportunity. In Sproat's return to the big leagues after last month’s demotion to Triple-A, Pat Murphy tasked the former starter with recording the final six outs against the Cubs with a seven-run lead on Wednesday night. He only recorded four of those outs, issuing four walks and hitting a batter. Before long, Abner Uribe was facing pinch-hitter BJ Murray as the tying run, with the dangerous Pete Crow-Armstrong on deck. Uribe struck out Murray to extinguish the fire and close out a three-game sweep. Despite a trio of statement wins against the Brewers’ top division rival, however, Murphy’s postgame presser carried a mixed tone. His offense had backed off the gas pedal after scoring six early runs against Kevin Gausman, and Sproat’s poor performance nearly made it costly. “It’s unacceptable,” Murphy said. “You’ve got to throw the ball over the plate to be a major-league pitcher.” That was already a recurring issue for Sproat, who walked 11.6% of batters faced before his demotion. It was even worse in Nashville, where he posted a 12.8% walk rate and threw just 42% of his pitches in the strike zone. Because of his electric stuff, Sproat struck out 34.6% of opponents and pitched to a 3.18 xERA against less disciplined hitters, but there was no improvement from a process standpoint. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. The development staff in Nashville tried simplifying things for Sproat to get him back into the zone, leaning more on his straight four-seamer and relying less on the new cutter that had the worst run value of any pitch in his arsenal this year. In a two-inning relief appearance before his call-up, 67% of Sproat’s pitches were four-seamers or curveballs. That’s a simple, vertical sequence that he can tunnel by aiming both pitches right down the middle. That approach often turns converted starters into successful relievers. Getting less cute with pitch usage and command can free a pitcher mentally and physically. By throwing their two or three best pitches at max effort anywhere in the strike zone, things can click into place pretty easily. The Brewers have recently seen it work for Chad Patrick and Shane Drohan. It doesn’t address Sproat’s biggest issue: letting things get out of hand quickly after a bad sequence or plate appearance. He showed brief flashes of dominance in nearly every start, but he was prone to big innings, and when something disrupted his rhythm on the mound, he couldn’t recalibrate. That’s what did him in on Wednesday. Sproat walked Crow-Armstrong on eight pitches to open the inning. The adage is that leadoff walks will haunt defenses, but the real turning point was when Sproat attempted to pick off Crow-Armstrong in a situation where every team would give him second base on defensive indifference. Andrew Vaughn was not holding the runner, so Sproat’s throw sailed into foul territory. The floodgates opened from there: a wild pitch as part of a five-pitch walk, a third walk to load the bases, an Alex Bregman strikeout, then a run-scoring walk. “I knew he was nervous,” Murphy said. “No matter what, you can’t let it snowball like that.” “It’s a game of highs and lows,” William Contreras said. “I don’t know if he’s out there trying to do more than what he is. We all know who he is in this room. We’ve seen plenty of him this season. He’s helped us this season. But it’s a hard game whenever you’re trying to do more than maybe what you’re capable of.” Until that part of Sproat’s game is resolved, he’ll keep running into similar issues in any role. For now, he’ll almost certainly head back to Nashville in exchange for a fresh arm. Given his upside, it’s still hard to rule him out for a postseason roster spot, but that won’t happen until Sproat proves he can stay poised and course-correct during an outing. Time is running out for that to happen in 2026. View full article

Image courtesy of USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect Last week at Wrigley Field, Pat Murphy made a rare admission to the media: in a close game, he made a decision that didn't maximize the Brewers' chances of winning. After hitting Andrew Vaughn for David Hamilton last Sunday against the Rangers, Murphy kept him in the game as the third baseman. That was a hit to the infield defense with Milwaukee trailing by three runs, but Murphy was thinking ahead to their first September series against the Cubs. "I wanted to get him two at-bats, because I knew coming into the series he was going to get some at-bats," Murphy said. "Do I do that if I'm ruthless about winning every single game? Probably not. But I have to think of those things." Murphy has to think ahead as a manager, but it's one of his least favorite parts of the job to discuss. Having cut his teeth as a coach in the uncertain and chaotic environment of college baseball, he believes you can't control much about the future. The best thing you can do is try your best to win the game in front of you. One of Murphy's most repeated mantras is "Win Tonight." That means Murphy puts his chips on the table when he sniffs a potential win. He wants his best players on the field whenever possible. He doesn't push players to the point of immediate injury risk, but Murphy will wade into the gray area on workloads to win tonight. The standings aren't changing his view—at least not yet. Milwaukee entered their final regular-season series against the Cubs with a seven-game lead over Chicago in the NL Central. According to FanGraphs, they had a 98.6% chance of winning the division. Still, Murphy has insisted repeatedly over the last several weeks that the Brewers cannot start thinking ahead about October ("We're not in the postseason yet," he cautioned before the Wrigley series). In fairness, there is still something to play for; securing baseball's best record would guarantee home-field advantage through the postseason. On Monday, Murphy pitched Abner Uribe in a back-to-back outing while trailing by one run in the eighth inning, saying afterward that he considered it a high-leverage situation. On Tuesday, he kept Uribe off-limits and gave Jake Bauers a second straight maintenance day as he deals with shin splints. However, he also pitched Aaron Ashby for the sixth time in eight days and pinch-hit for Bauers in the fifth inning, so he played the second half of the game at first base. As they often have, Murphy's more aggressive decisions paid off, at least in the short term. The Brewers notched comeback wins in both games, including Tuesday's particularly dramatic walk-off win. Even though neither meant much for the divisional standings – particularly after the Brewers secured the season series and postseason tiebreaker over the Cubs on Monday – both had a playoff-like atmosphere. "Playing here and being close to Chicago and playing in Wrigley, it's always pretty crazy," DL Hall said. "But I think we just look at it like any other game, and we just play our game, no matter who's across the field in the other dugout." For the Brewers, that means leaving everything on the field and refusing to quit. Redemption was the story of the night, as the key contributors behind the late-inning comeback were having unproductive nights, made mistakes earlier in the game, or both. "We made some junior mistakes before that, but hung in there and [were] resilient," Murphy said of the eventual walk-off victory. "That's just kind of what you'd love to be part of, trusting your team and believing they'll keep coming back." After Trevor Megill allowed two runs in the top of the ninth, the Brewers were down to their final strike. Christian Yelich battled back from an 0-2 count for a pinch-hit single, giving Jackson Chourio a crack at Cubs closer Jacob Webb. The Brewers may have taken a lead to the ninth had Chourio not cost them a run on the bases an hour earlier. Trying to score from second on William Contreras's two-out single in the fifth, Chourio awkwardly slid feet first into the plate, trying to swipe home plate with his left hand. He jammed his thumb and was tagged out on a tag he should have beaten, even if it was a great throw by Seiya Suzuki. "He's got a lane to slide in. You hope he's safe there," Murphy said. "Feet first at the plate, I just don't like it." He made up for it in the ninth. After fouling off a first-pitch changeup over the inner third of the plate, Chourio turned on the next one he saw and launched a game-tying home run to left. After his go-ahead single in the eighth the day before, it was the latest addition to his growing resume of coming through in the biggest moments. "You got to get 27 outs, right? There's not another person I probably want up in that situation." Garrett Mitchell said. "He just does less and demolishes baseballs." Mitchell was having a rough night at the plate himself, going 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, but he set up the walk-off with his defense in extra innings. When Alex Bregman led off the top of the tenth with a fly ball to center field, Mitchell positioned himself, stepped into the catch (with Chourio alerting him that the placed runner Suzuki was preparing to tag up), and fired to third. David Hamilton held the tag as Suzuki slid past the base to complete the double play. "It's baseball. You can have a really good day and a really crappy day," Mitchell said. "I think I've talked about this a lot. There's not a lot you can control on the offensive end when things aren't going well, but if there's one thing I take pride in, it's playing good defense, and you don't take your offense to defense." Luis Lara was also 0-for-4 when he stepped up with the bases loaded in the bottom of the tenth. In the sixth, he emotionally challenged a third strike that was fully in the zone, exhausting the Brewers' final ABS challenge. That proved consequential in the ninth, as what should have been a Michael Conforto strikeout became a one-out walk when ball four clipped the zone and William Contreras could not challenge. Lara also struck out with runners on second and third in the eighth to end a potential rally. Before Lara stepped into the box, Murphy approached him in the on-deck circle with a message of encouragement. "He asked me if I was ready, and he told me that he believed in me 100 percent," Lara said through translator Daniel de Mondesert. "I was just trying to get him to take the emotions out of it and just have kind of a clear head," Murphy said. "'It's not about you, it's about the ballclub right here. The ballclub needs you to stay level-headed.' I don't think that had any difference in the at-bat." On the first pitch, Lara drove a walk-off single down the left-field line. "I think the only thing that was repeating in my head over and over again was, 'Wow, wow, wow,'" Lara said. "It was just unbelievable." "He just cares," Murphy said. "When you come into the environment here, you care about the team. That's the deal." On one hand, resiliency should serve the Brewers well in October. Regular-season baseball already punches you in the mouth repeatedly, and it hits even harder in do-or-die playoff environments. The Cubs could again be Milwaukee's NLDS opponent, and in recent games, the Brewers have embodied the traits of a successful postseason team. They've bounced back from bad losses, pitched well against a formidable lineup, played great defense, and gotten enough big swings from hitters like Chourio to flip the scoreboard when it matters most. On the other hand, last year's NLCS sweep showed what happens when the tank runs dry too soon. The offense looked like a shell of itself after grinding out every plate appearance for six months and playing through injuries. With diminished command and velocity, respectively, Ashby and Uribe looked to be running on fumes. The Brewers didn't back off that September. With that context, it's fair to wonder whether Monday and Tuesday's high-effort wins would look different after a playoff exit. Are a few extra regular-season wins worth it if they send a club to an earlier October burnout? Every team has wear and tear by the postseason, but unlike most teams, the Brewers played so well that they earned the luxury of pacing themselves down the stretch. Is continuing to go full-throttle with the best playoff odds in baseball the best use of the next three weeks? That's the balance Murphy and the Brewers must strike, particularly after they clinch a postseason spot and the division in the coming days. They should still make a push for the top seed, but at that point, there are more important considerations than winning the game in front of you. The last two wins can be an October preview, but not the premature peak of Milwaukee's season. View full article

Image courtesy of David Banks-Imagn Images The Brewers’ young outfielders were right in the middle of their Labor Day comeback win over the Cubs, which inched Milwaukee closer to another NL Central title by securing the season series. Luis Lara scored their first run in the fifth inning. After Jackson Chourio delivered the go-ahead single as part of a three-run eighth, Lara added more flair in the ninth with a leaping catch at the wall, robbing Pedro Ramírez of extra bases against Trevor Megill. “In that situation, I’m just reacting,” Lara said through interpreter Daniel de Mondesert. “That’s the only thing going through my head, is reacting to the play and to the ball off the bat, and just finding any way I possibly can to make the play there.” It wasn’t lost on Pat Murphy that Lara made a pivotal play in the field minutes after a poor at-bat to end that eighth-inning rally. “That response type stuff is what it’s all about,” Murphy said. “Responding after things don’t go right, and as quickly as possible.” His closer appreciated the effort. “He goes balls to the wall,” Megill said. “That’s what we want from our outfielders and our defense, and that’s the standard. He goes out there and does that every single day on defense.” That’s a crude but accurate way to put it. In fewer than 50 big-league games, Lara has already assembled an impressive highlight reel. He entered Monday with 6 Defensive Runs Saved and 2 Outs Above Average in 339 outfield innings. Before that, Lara won a Gold Glove in 2025 in the minor leagues, where he developed a reputation for his daring patrol of the grass. “He makes that play at the wall look really, really easy,” said Christian Yelich, who formerly traversed right field at American Family Field. “And it’s not an easy play, especially in right field, because of how [the wall] slants in and goes back. It’s just a funky area over there, and he makes it look easy.” That wasn’t the case immediately after Lara’s promotion to the majors. After he played mostly center in the minor leagues, the Brewers have used him primarily in right field. While most modern big-league stadiums measure at least 325 feet between home plate and the foul poles in both outfield corners, many minor-league parks have smaller dimensions closer to 300 feet in the corners, with shorter warning tracks. Lara has maintained that he has always felt confident in his ability to play any outfield position, but he was clearly unfamiliar with that newfound space in right field. He seemed uncertain of how close he was to the wall, leading to some early hesitation on plays that should have been easier for him. The most notable moment came in his second big-league game in St. Louis. When Masyn Winn drove a deep but relatively routine fly ball to right, Lara kept checking on the wall. As soon as he hit the warning track, he believed he was running out of room, so he slowed down and leaped. Instead of hitting the padding as he expected, Lara fell forward into open space, flubbing the ball and turning what should have been an out into a double. MDRYV05fVjBZQUhRPT1fVTFjQUJsd0JVd0VBQVZZS0JBQUhCd0JmQUFNTldsWUFCRkFHQndjRUExSUdBVmRU.mp4 A couple of weeks later, Lara was tested with a bloop fly ball down the right-field line, with Brice Turang and Jake Bauers converging toward him as the play unfolded. It was Lara’s ball, but he hesitated to avoid a collision, and the ball dropped for a double. V0FXUVBfWGw0TUFRPT1fQkZjRkJsRlNBRlFBRHdRRkFBQUhCd0JUQUFNQ0JRY0FWd0ZXQXdZRkFRVUdVd3BS.mp4 Both misplays were understandable for a young outfielder acclimating to new and unfamiliar surroundings. Lara had played very little right field as a professional, but there was reason to believe that his instincts and ability would allow him to transition quickly. That’s precisely what happened. August brought more reckless catches, with Lara sacrificing his body to the wall without hesitation. His coming-out party was an extra-innings win against the Twins on August 9. With the game tied at 3-3 in the sixth inning, he robbed Brooks Lee of extra bases with a leap at the wall. NHlLZUJfWGw0TUFRPT1fQWdkVVVnVlNBbFlBWFZFRVZ3QUhCVklEQUZnTlYxUUFCUU1GQmdRRlVsRlVWQVlI.mp4 He made a far better play in the 10th, taking a perfect route on a Kody Clemens drive and slamming into the wall, preventing the go-ahead run on second base from scoring. NHlLZUJfWGw0TUFRPT1fVlZkUVhBQlhBMWNBV3dNQ1V3QUhWdzVXQUFNTldsWUFDMU1HVlFBQ0NWWUdVZ3BU.mp4 At that point, Lara had played just two big-league games in center field, and nearly all of his action came in right. Pat Murphy revealed that to be a deliberate decision after the game, saying he wanted to limit Lara to one position to ease his transition. “He’s very capable of [playing] center field, but I didn’t put him in center because I want him to just keep getting more and more comfortable in right field,” Murphy said. Lara has since gotten more action in center while Garrett Mitchell nursed a foot injury, and the highlight-reel plays have accumulated at both positions. Pair that defense with a passable 97 wRC+ and .337 on-base percentage, and the 21-year-old has already been an impact player in his rookie season. “In all areas on the field, I feel like I have confidence,” Lara said. “Defending, at the plate, running the bases—whatever it is, I have confidence in my ability, so [I'm] just really out there enjoying it.” View full article

Image courtesy of David Banks-Imagn Images Looking at the box score, one wouldn't think that anything was wrong with Kyle Harrison. Since returning from a month-long stint on the injured list with left forearm tightness, Harrison's results and peripherals largely matched his pre-injury dominance. Entering Monday night’s outing against the Cubs, he had pitched to a 1.83 ERA, 3.61 xERA, and 3.13 SIERA with a 31.7% strikeout rate since his return. While Harrison’s results were nearly identical to before, his stuff was not. Before his IL stint, his signature fastball averaged a career-best 95 mph. Since his return, it’s averaged 93.7 mph. He was also unintentionally dropping his arm slot for a couple of starts, which killed some of the fastball’s carry. The downturn in stuff made him more homer-prone – Harrison allowed 1.83 home runs per nine in his first four starts back, after a 1.08 rate before the injury – but for the most part, he was making do with what he had. Against mostly below-average lineups, the fastball was still getting whiffs at 92-to-94, and he corrected the arm slot problem after a rough outing in San Diego. Still, the velocity dip remained noteworthy. Monday night was the first time Harrison faced a postseason-caliber lineup with his diminished fastball, and they demolished him. The Cubs, who lead baseball in runs scored and wRC+, whiffed only twice on 32 swings against Harrison’s fastball and hit four of their five home runs against the heater. Each home run pitch was under 95 mph, and three were under 94. Harrison allowed a career-high nine earned runs in 3 ⅔ innings. Velocity wasn’t the only issue. Harrison and Pat Murphy said that he was tipping his pitches early in the outing by coming set with his hands in different positions for each pitch type. “When you know what’s coming, it’s a little bit easier to hit, I think,” Harrison said. “So it's on me [to address] during the week. I knew these guys are looking for any sign of edge that they can get, and they got a little bit of an edge on me, I think, in that first inning.” Harrison’s command was also poor, as three of those four fastball homers came on pitches over the middle of the plate. However, Harrison’s fastball has been effective right down the middle at higher velocities. This season, on fastballs thrown at least 94 mph where Statcast considers down the middle, Harrison has produced a +2 run value and held hitters to a .190 batting average with a 23.6% whiff rate. The Cubs hit fastballs in locations that have been effective for Harrison this year. Even after he tried to fix the tipping after the first inning, they still hit him hard. Above all else, the bottom line is that his current fastball is not the same pitch it was in the first half. That also includes the pitch’s movement. When Harrison generates less velocity, he also generates less backspin on his fastball. On Monday, it averaged one less inch of induced vertical break than his season average. “I don't think it's necessarily about the velo as much, it's about the shape,” Harrison said. “That's some of the frustrating stuff. I thought we were in a good spot last bullpen, was able to get back up to like 20 [induced vertical break], and then coming out today was more like 13.” “It's more about not only the [velocity] number, but if the ball's taking off the way it usually does at the top [of the zone], then that makes him really effective, because it looks like it's going to be here and then it takes off,” Murphy said. “When it's not doing that, it's more hittable. We saw a little bit of that in spring training. We've seen it a few times.” That backspin usually gives Harrison’s fastball above-average carry (which hitters often describe as “ride” or “late life”) from a low release height. When that carry is there, it hasn't become unusable around 93 mph. Instead, it goes from an elite pitch to an above-average one for his career. MPH Run Value Run Value/100p wOBA Whiff% 94+ 20 1.5 .257 29.0% 93-94 5 0.7 .313 23.7% 92-93 2 0.3 .331 28.4% <92 -11 -2.6 .469 17.2% In reality, Harrison’s fastball is not entirely dependent on velocity to be effective. The real issue is his limited arsenal, which becomes exposed when his fastball velocity dips. Pitchers with deep pitch mixes can get by with a merely solid fastball, but Harrison is effectively a two-pitch pitcher with one fastball and one breaking ball. To make that two-pitch combination work as a starter, at least one must be excellent, and Harrison’s non-fastballs are not. His slider has big, loopy break with below-average spin. That kind of pitch does not play well on its own, so its effectiveness hinges on separation from an elite fastball. Harrison throws a kick changeup with significant drop as a third pitch, but he’s used it just 9% of the time this year with poor command. He threw progressively more changeups on Monday as the Cubs barreled his fastball, but he located just 21% of them in the strike zone. Harrison’s 2024 season showed what happens when his fastball is solid instead of elite. His fastball averaged 92.6 mph that year, and it still limited hitters to a .328 wOBA with a 23% whiff rate. However, his breaking ball was hit harder, producing a .347 wOBA, compared to just .188 this year. Harrison was a below-average pitcher that season, pitching to a 4.56 ERA, 4.33 FIP, and 4.18 SIERA. That’s not a postseason starter, an alarming twist after Jacob Misiorowski and Harrison looked like a formidable 1-2 rotation punch mere weeks ago. For most of the year, it seemed those two could give the Brewers a chance against any team in a short playoff series. Now they must prepare for Harrison to be entirely out of the mix. Logan Henderson should start Game 2 instead, and Shane Drohan and Dustin May, each of whom has his own shortcomings, will also have to cover more important innings. Where the Brewers go from here remains to be seen. Harrison has maintained that his velocity will return. “I'm not giving up on the velo. I think it’ll still be there,” he said. “I'm feeling great physically, so just gotta keep going, keep grinding, put the head down.” If Harrison truly is healthy, then where did his plus fastball go, and how can he get it back? “His delivery might be a little bit jacked,” Murphy said. “I think it's in there, and I haven't lost trust, but I think we got to go back and look at the delivery and make sure his mechanics are solid.” Harrison and the Brewers have four weeks to get him right. How he looks during that time carries massive implications for their postseason pitching picture. View full article

Image courtesy of Benny Sieu-Imagn Images On August 14 against the Dodgers, William Contreras went 0-for-4 to drop his OPS to .702, its lowest point of the season. It was Contreras's sixth straight game without a hit. Over his last 30, he had hit .153/.241/.243. His struggles had grown so severe that Pat Murphy moved him from the top half to the bottom half of the lineup. When Contreras stepped up to the plate that night in Los Angeles, this was how his stance looked. He held his hands over his head and his outstretched arms well away from his body. Contreras has always been a tinkerer in the box. He's long toyed with different versions of his stance throughout the season, even when he's going well. At times, it changes from day to day. This was one of several stances he deployed during his slump, and he had been using it since the Brewers' previous West Coast trip two weeks earlier. It wasn't helping him break out of his struggles. If anything, it was digging him further into his hole. The screenshot above was taken seconds before a swing-and-miss on a 96-mph Yoshinobu Yamamoto sinker low and inside. It's a well-executed pitch that's hard to barrel, but Contreras is a strong athlete with above-average bat speed. When he's going well, he can pull his hands in on a down-and-in pitch and get the bat head far enough in front to make loud contact. That was harder to do with his hands starting so far from his body. By the time he pulled them in, he was late on that sinker and slashed over the top of it. YkJMMTRfVjBZQUhRPT1fQVFsVkJ3WldWRlFBQ3dBQkF3QUhDQVFGQUZsUUFsVUFBZ2NNVmdjR0NBUUhVVkZY.mp4 "Now you got to start early to get to that," Pat Murphy said. "Now guys [are pitching] him in, and your hands are way out here, you got to start early to get to that pitch. Now you're cutting across balls, missing balls, and you can't get there. It's just really hard to get to that spot." The following night, Contreras returned to his old stance. His hands were still above his head, but he held his bat above his shoulder and closer to his body. In his first at-bat, he roped a 107-mph line drive to left for a single. His next time up, he hit his first home run since July 19. That was the start of a torrid stretch for the Milwaukee backstop, who has hit .408/.456/.612 (191 wRC+) in his last 12 games. He's back to hitting the ball hard, posting a 51.5% hard-hit rate and average exit velocity of 91.9 mph in that span. By the time of the Brewers' series in New York last week, he was resting his bat on his shoulder, allowing him to pull that same low-and-in sinker for a 106-mph double. TzA0OW9fVjBZQUhRPT1fVkFKVlV3WU1Bd3NBWGxWVEF3QUhWUUZWQUZsVFZsQUFBVmNOQmxJTUFBZFJCd3RV.mp4 On Saturday night, Contreras launched another inside sinker for a towering home run that gave the Brewers an early lead. TzA0UjlfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1UxUURWMWNCVXdVQUNGSldVd0FIQ1E1U0FGaFhVRllBVkYxVUJsQURCZ3RVQXdZRA==.mp4 There are more tweaks going on here—Contreras has also started using a toe tap lately—but more than anything, his hands are allowing him to get to the ball directly and on time. "He's now got himself a little more tight [between his hands and his body], and he can stay a little linear with his hand path," Murphy said. "He doesn't need that space in there. I think it's helped him." Most of hitting is timing, so in some cases, less is often more. By becoming more compact with less pre-pitch movement, Contreras has simplified his setup. That's one of the tenets Murphy and the Brewers preach to their hitters: stop thinking too much and let your swing do the work. His other warning is that what works in batting practice won't necessarily translate against live pitching. Contreras is known for his vigorous pregame hitting work, which is where Murphy said he fell into that pitfall while trying different hand positions. Raising his hands worked in that practice setting, but not in games. "He goes out in pregame, and he hits it a long way. And it's timing that does that," Murphy said. "It doesn't matter where you have your hands if you time it up with the barrel. You don't get to do that when a guy's changing pitches and that type of thing." This is the second straight season in which Contreras's offense has declined, but he remains one of the Brewers' most talented hitters. He has the raw power to change a game with one swing, and Milwaukee's lineup functions more efficiently when he's a spark plug near the top of the order. That's the version they've seen over the past couple of weeks, and the version they hope to get in October. "He's learning, and he's been a good hitter his whole career, so he'll get back to being himself," Murphy said. "I think he's on track." View full article