Bullpen already under heavy workload
Through the first week of the season, the Milwaukee Brewers are among the lowest in the league in innings covered by starting pitchers.
And that’s a feature, not a bug. This is, for better or worse, how the Brewers will have to approach their pitching staff in 2024.
Through one turn of the starting rotation, three of the team’s five starters did not pitch past the fourth inning. And for each of those three – DL Hall, Jakob Junis and Joe Ross – it wasn’t due to them pitching poorly; they allowed only three runs combined.
It’s just that, as manager Pat Murphy warned throughout spring training, this is the way that it’s going to have to be.
“We don’t have a lot of starters who are experienced at going five-plus innings,” Murphy said following Wednesday’s 7-3 loss to the Minnesota Twins. “...You can throw whatever you want in spring training but it’s hard to build a guy up that hasn’t done it recently.”
Brewers starters don’t have inning-eater track records, either
Only Freddy Peralta has worked into the sixth inning among Brewers starters, who, through five games, have gotten only 22 2⁄ innings out of their five
3 starters. The bullpen has gone 22 1⁄ innings,
3 almost evenly matching the total of the starters.
With a starting pitching staff that does not have the arms to work deep into games – at least not yet and probably not for a while – and an offense that has not yet laid the hammer down on opponents, it puts a lot of strain on the bullpen trying to piece together 27 outs every day.
For the most part early on this year, the Brewers relievers have responded. They pitched 17 innings over the team’s first four games – all wins – and only allowed an earned run in two of them.
In Game 5 of the season on Wednesday against the Minnesota Twins, it didn’t quite go so well.
Ross, pitching in the majors for the first time in 967 days, didn’t allow any runs but couldn’t make it out of the fourth inning. One day after recording 15 outs in a 3-2 win in the home opener, the bullpen would be asked to get 16 – and do so without Trevor Megill. It didn’t work out, as Joel Payamps gave up four runs and Bryse Wilson allowed the go-ahead three-run homer to Ryan Jeffers in the seventh inning.
What the Brewers are asking of their pitchers isn’t impossible; it’s just very challenging.
“Here’s the thing,” Murphy said.
“You can’t just leave somebody out there and go, ‘Well we need the innings’ when you have seven other innings available (from bullpen arms). But you’re going to have to pay the price. Every once in a while that (starter) will get into the sixth or seventh, or you’re going to have to have your eighth reliever be just as good as your second or third reliever.
“That’s kind of how you have to look at it. You have to keep using the guys down below, keep bringing them up.”
Challenging schedule will test bullpen
It’s only going to get tougher. Following a day off Thursday, Milwaukee will play games on 13 consecutive days and 26 out of 27 overall.
“We’ve got depth. That’s one of the ways we constructed this, is we’ve got depth,” Murphy said.
The good news for Milwaukee is that despite the short outings from the starters, they have still pitched well. Their 1.98 ERA as a unit is tops in the National League after a week.
“I’ve thought our starting pitching has been good enough,” Murphy said. “Has it gone deep into games? No. But we’ve got some depth.”
That depth is already going to be tested.
Having to put Megill on the concussion injured list after he fainted and hit his head was just the latest blow to the Brewers pitching staff. Even though it may not seem like the most crucial loss the pitching staff has suffered, zoom out and you can see how the individual dents to the pitching all have an intertwining impact.
Wade Miley was not ready for the start of the regular season. Devin Williams will be out two months with stress fractures in his back. Taylor Clarke needed knee surgery. Now, no Megill for at least the immediate future.
Because of that, the Brewers had to rely on Payamps on Wednesday on a back-to-back outing and for the fourth time in six days. When he ran into trouble landing his slider in the seventh, they turned to Wilson to get out of the jam and he surrendered the go-ahead homer.
The Brewers will “probably” go to a six-man rotation during their upcoming challenging stretch, Murphy said, with Miley potentially returning as the sixth starter.
That would mean the bullpen would be down to seven pitchers due to the league’s 13 pitcher maximum. If starters continue to be unable to throw five innings, that only stretches those relievers out further.
This innings puzzle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.