The Brewers have placed Kolten Wong on the 10-day injured list with a right calf strain, retroactive to June 8th, per the team. Right-hander Luke Barker was also optioned to Triple-A. To fill the active roster, Mark Mathias and Peter Strzelecki were recalled from Triple-A. The Brewers have been sliding, losers of seven straight coming into today’s game against the Nationals.
Barker and Strzelecki are swapping places after doing the same back on June 3rd. The 27-year-old Strzelecki made just one appearance for the club, a two-inning outing back on June 2nd in which he surrendered one earned run. He gave his roster spot to Barker the following day. Barker, 30, made three appearances for the Brew Crew, yielding five earned runs across four innings of work.
Wong has been the leadoff man for most of the year, with Christian Yelich taking over atop the lineup in the past three games while Wong has been out. Defensively Luis Urias has continued in his role as a swingman, moving to the keystone from shortstop, where he had been filling in for Willy Adames before his return from the injured list. Wong has been exactly league-average with the bat (100 wRC+), slashing .228/.321/.389 in 209 plate appearances.
Mathias, 27, can step into Mike Brosseau’s role as a right-handed infield option. Jace Peterson has been seeing most of the playing time at third base, but against a lefty starter, Milwaukee is likely to turn to Mathias or Keston Hiura.
Totally obscure true fact: Mark Mathias has more major league stolen bases than walks.
This can’t be good for the Crew…
Nobody else on the team is any good right now, so it really doesn’t matter.
Just my opinion but I think this was a Wong move by the Brewers
That joke has been overused a Wong time ago
When are Brewers going to learn, that they need to quit trying to not start players major league clocks. Turang is ready bring him up. They aren’t going to even make the playoffs with Reyes and Mathias.
I think they look at Hiura as an example of what happens when you bring someone up too early. They know Matthias and Reyes and Brosseau and Peterson are all basically AAAA players. I think they also know Cain is done from an offensive standpoint. They expected Yelich and Hiura to get it together and it’s not happening. They’re hoping some combination of these folks will get hot at the right time. With half the team or better trying to figure it out at the same time, what’s the point of bringing up a kid in that environment? Not much to lose from the big league standpoint, so I get that, but probably not the time to bring a new kid up to see if they can find success in the vacuum going on around him.
Rather difficult to hit consistently as a player (or team) when the batting order is constantly changing and lacks stability. You can thank the manager for that problem! Always trying to prove he’s the smartest guy in the room. (Like the GM) Hitters need regular AB’s and a consistent place in the order. Creatures of habit.
Wong, McCutcheon, Yelich, Adames, Telez, Renfroe, Narvaez, Urias, Taylor/Cain is their best lineup imho. While Wong’s out, move everybody up and put his replacement at the bottom of the order.
So they should move Yelich out of the leadoff spot, despite him seeming to finally remember how to hit since moving there?
Sure was enjoyable to tune in to Brewer telecasts the first third of the season with Rock, etc., and without BA. Now, I’m back to listening via other means a majority of the time when Anderson’s on the telecast. While Rock is great and worth listening to, wish the hell the team would get rid of BA as an announcer.