Mike Brosseau Seized the Moment at Wrigley Field

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Photo: Milwaukee Brewers - Twitter

Mike Brosseau - April 10, 2022

Mike Brosseau - April 10, 2022

New Brewers third baseman Mike Brosseau picked a good time to make a good first impression, as his first hit of the season will likely be replayed many times in the months ahead.

Brosseau entered Sunday’s game as a pinch hitter in the top of the seventh inning, just moments after the Cubs had tied the game on a wild pitch in the bottom of the sixth. With the score now 4-4 the Brewers faced a potential Opening Weekend disaster: Already having lost the first two games in the series to the Cubs (including an ugly defeat on Saturday that included a bench-clearing incident), they now risked getting swept at Wrigley Field to open the season 0-3. 

Instead, Brosseau seized the moment. He took the third pitch he faced from Cubs reliever and former Brewer Daniel Norris and homered to left, giving the Crew a 5-4 lead. They went on to win by that same score, salvaging a game in the series in dramatic fashion.

Sunday was only Brosseau’s 146th MLB game across his four seasons, as he’s played partial years at the big-league level with the Rays across the last three years. He’s already racked up a few moments on big stages, however: His stint with the Rays included 15 postseason games, where he homered in the decisive Game 5 of their 2020 ALDS win over the Yankees and picked up a couple of hits in the World Series. 

With the Brewers, Brosseau is getting an extended look at third base at least in part due to Luis Urías’ ongoing quad injury. Urías seemed likely to play most days at third heading into the season, but his absence opened the door for Brosseau and holdover Jace Peterson to get into more early games.

It’s still unknown at this point how long Urías will be out, but the players getting extra work in his absence may have a short window to audition for a continued role: Urías’ return and the paring down of MLB rosters from 28 to 26 on May 1 mean the Brewers will have to make decisions on a few players in the coming weeks. They clearly like Brosseau, who they traded for last November, but they only have so many spots and so much playing time available.

Of course, history suggests that a previously unheralded player can significantly alter their career trajectory by getting hot at the right time. Here are some recent Brewers who rode a big first impression into an expanded role:

Erik Kratz

A longtime backup catcher, Kratz was a few days shy of his 38th birthday when the Brewers acquired him to add some depth behind the plate in May of 2018. At that point Kratz had played in parts of eight MLB seasons and the Brewers were about to become his sixth franchise. Expectations were not high for an aging backup with a .250 career on-base percentage.

In his first three appearances as a Brewer, however, Kratz connected for six hits and a pair of home runs and the Brewers won all three contests. The longtime backup ended up playing regularly for the Crew down the stretch as they chased and eventually won an NL Central crown, and at 38 years old he set career highs in plate appearances (219) and hits (48). He appeared in nine of the Brewers’ ten postseason games that season, the only playoff appearances of his career. He eventually stayed in the majors through 2020, his age 40 season.

Eric Sogard

After spending parts of six seasons as a middle infielder for the Athletics, Sogard missed the entire 2016 season and it looked like his career might be headed on a downward trajectory: He was about to turn 31 and had never hit much at the MLB level, carrying a .295 on-base percentage and .313 slugging through 435 games.

The Brewers signed Sogard to a minor league deal for the 2017 season, however, and by May he had hit his way onto the roster. His hot bat followed him to Milwaukee, where in his first week on the roster he logged a pair of home runs and two other four-hit games. 

Since resurfacing in the majors with the Brewers Sogard has appeared in 380 games across the last five seasons, including a few stints in Milwaukee. He had the best season of his career with the Blue Jays and Rays in 2019 and homered for Tampa in the ALDS that season.

Jesus Aguilar

Sogard wasn’t the Brewers’ only 2017 breakout, however, or even their first. Jesus Aguilar had been in the minors with Cleveland for nearly a decade when the Brewers claimed him off waivers in February of 2017. He hit his way onto the Opening Day roster despite the fact that the Brewers didn’t really have a clear path to playing time for him, as they had also brought Eric Thames back from Korea that winter.

Aguilar’s bat continued to force the issue, however, as he collected nine hits in his first eleven regular season at bats as a Brewer. That season-opening hot streak gained him enough goodwill to allow him to outlast the extended slump that followed (a 1-for-29 skid), and Aguilar has been a full-time big leaguer ever since. He was an All Star for the Brewers in 2018, when he finished fifth in the National League in home runs (35) and has experienced sustained success in the majors with the Rays and Marlins.