Who are the Odd Men out in the Brewers’ Rotation?

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Photo by Kirsten Shmitt, courtesy Milwaukee Brewers

Surprise contributors have been a big reason the Brewers have been able to stay in the postseason picture this season, but the organization is nearing tough decisions on several of them.

The Brewers have one of the National League’s best pitching staffs, but the pitchers leading the way often haven’t been the ones projected to be there. Through their first 106 games the Brewers have yet to send Aaron Ashby (shoulder) to the mound, have seen Brandon Woodruff (shoulder) just twice and they’re also currently without Wade Miley (elbow) and Eric Lauer (shoulder).

In their absence the Brewers have turned to a handful of pitchers they didn’t expect to use as often or at all this season. Adrian Houser opened the season on the injured list and was expected to rejoin the team in a long relief role when he was healthy. Instead, he’s made 12 starts. Colin Rea wasn’t the first pitcher the Brewers turned to when they needed rotation help (they tried Janson Junk first), but he’s third on the team in starts (18) and innings pitched (96 1/3). Julio Teheran hadn’t pitched in the majors in two years before the Brewers signed him and penciled him into the lineup on the same day in May, but he’s made eleven starts.

Remain in Rotation?

Collectively, this trio has been solid and at times more than that. There’s likely not room for all of them in the rotation as others start to get healthy, though, and that crunch could come soon: Miley could rejoin the team sometime during the middle of this week, and Woodruff might only be a few days behind him. It’s possible Houser, Rea and Teheran were all auditioning for an opportunity to remain in the rotation when they pitched against the Braves over the weekend and, unfortunately for all of them and for the Brewers, none of those outings went well.

Houser opened the series on Friday night and set the tone for the weekend, allowing ten baserunners and six earned runs in just four innings of a game the Brewers went on to lose 10-7. He represents a bit of an unusual style among MLB pitchers by continuing to rely heavily on a sinking fastball, a pitch that has largely gone out of fashion across the game but has worked for him. Baseball Savant shows Houser well below average in terms of getting opponents to swing and miss and at avoiding hard contact, but he’s better than average at inducing ground balls. Based on his tenure he’s probably the most likely of these three to stick in the rotation, but if he doesn’t, he could be intriguing as a ground ball specialist out of the bullpen for the stretch run.

Teheran followed Houser to the mount on Saturday and struggled even more, allowing eleven hits and nine runs, including three home runs, across five innings. After posting a 1.53 ERA across his first six appearances with the Brewers Teheran has an 8.89 mark across his last five. He’s thrown a lot of strikes over that time (walking just three of 123 batters faced) but opponents are having no problem hitting him hard, as they’ve got a .638 slugging percentage against him in those five outings. After Saturday’s outing he told reporters he thought he might be tipping pitches, but the Brewers placed him on the injured list on Sunday with a hip impingement. He’ll have some work to do to reclaim a spot in the rotation once he’s healthy.

Teheran’s trip to the injured list might have created a little breathing room for Rea, but his performance Sunday didn’t solidify his status. He pitched five innings in the series finale and allowed five runs on five hits, including a pair of home runs. Rea works efficiently and so the Brewers have routinely used him deep into games. He’s never thrown more than 93 pitches in a game as a Brewer but has pitched at least five innings in 15 of his 17 starts, including five where he pitched six innings and two where he recorded outs in the seventh. Like Houser, however, Rea’s peripheral numbers show a pitcher who is experiencing success without being dominant, and that raises questions about the sustainability of his performance. Brandon Woodruff is scheduled to pitch for Nashville this week and Rea’s spot in the rotation will come up again before Woodruff is ready to pitch again after that, but it wouldn’t be a shock if he ends up in Rea’s spot.

Of course, the Brewers almost certainly know that they’ll need more than five starting pitchers in the final two months of the season and any plan going forward will likely include some effort to preserve as much depth as possible to allow them to weather challenges during the stretch run. For now, however, they’re about to have more starting pitchers than opportunities to start, and some of the contributors who helped them reach this point may not have a spot to continue.