It’s become almost a time-honored tradition. Fretting about the Brewers’ pitching depth — or lack thereof — only to immediately be made to feel foolish for ever doubting our pitching development overlords. Milwaukee traded Freddy Peralta this offseason. Quinn Priester opened the season on the injured list. Brandon Woodruff‘s Opening Day status was up in the air for much of the spring. He made six starts, saw his average fastball dip from 92.5 mph to 85.4 mph in the last of them, and is now on the injured list alongside Priester.
With Woodruff and Priester on the injured list, the Brewers have two starters on the 40-man roster with more than a year of big league service time. They have … zero … with two full years of major league service. Surely a reckoning is coming. Or at least you’d think.
Instead, the Brewers are humming right along. Thursday’s 7-1 drubbing of the Padres bumped them to 24-17. They’re second in the NL Central behind the Cubs. Milwaukee has a firm grip on a Wild Card spot, and with the Cubs’ own pitching staff increasingly decimated by injuries, the Brewers are gaining ground. Chicago just snapped a four-game losing streak. Milwaukee has won six of its past seven games and nine of its past dozen.
The recent surge isn’t due to any sort of juggernaut offense. Milwaukee hadn’t scored more than six runs in a game this month prior to Thursday. They’re a league-average offense, per measure of wRC+. They’re last in the majors with 27 home runs. Oh, and they’re also allowing 2.18 runs per game this month — 24 runs in 11 contests. The Brewers rank third in Major League Baseball with a 3.35 ERA. That includes a 3.27 ERA from the rotation, despite the injuries and lack of experience.
How are they getting it done, and are the key contributors pitching in a sustainable way? Let’s take a deeper look.
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