The Opener: AL Playoff Race, Padres, Brewers, Pitchers’ Duel
As we enter the final week of the 2025 regular season, here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on:
1. AL contenders prepare for a hectic week:
No teams in the American League have games scheduled for today, giving everyone in the league a breather ahead of a wild final week of the regular season. Only the Blue Jays have clinched a postseason spot among the AL’s teams, and even they haven’t clinched a division title. The Yankees and Mariners appear all but guaranteed a playoff spot at this point, but the Red Sox and Tigers are still facing realistic scenarios where they’re on the outside looking in come October. The Astros and MLB’s hottest club, the resurgent Guardians, are vying for that final spot in the playoffs. With series coming up between Cleveland and Detroit, Boston and Toronto, and Detroit and Boston before the regular season comes to a close, there are plenty of big games to watch throughout the week that will impact the AL playoff picture in a big way.
2. Series Preview: Brewers @ Padres
Over in the NL, one big series between playoff contenders is set to commence today when the Brewers head to San Diego. Milwaukee has already clinched the NL Central but will still need to fend of the Phillies to secure home field advantage throughout the playoffs. The Padres, meanwhile, have not yet clinched a playoff berth (although they’re very close to doing so), and they also sit just three games back of the Dodgers in the NL West.
San Diego would love a late hot streak to pry the NL West away from the Dodgers, but Brewers ace Freddy Peralta (2.65 ERA) stands in the way of that today. The Friars will counter with Nick Pivetta (2.81 ERA) opposite Peralta. Randy Vasquez (3.94 ERA) will take on an as-of-yet unannounced Brewers starter for Game 2. The series wraps with Milwaukee’s Quinn Priester (3.25 ERA) on the mound, while the Padres’ starter for that final game is still TBD. The set is scheduled to kick off at 6:40pm local time in San Diego this evening.
3. Star lefties face off in the NL East:
Neither the Braves nor the Nationals are a factor in the postseason race, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t intrigue to be found in their game this evening. One of the top up-and-coming lefties in the game, Nationals southpaw MacKenzie Gore, is set to take on reigning Cy Young winner Chris Sale in Atlanta. First pitch will be 7:15pm local time.
It’s been an up-and-down year for Gore, who looked like a Cy Young contender early on but started to slip during the summer months and wound up taking a trip to the injured list. He’s posted a 1.74 ERA in two starts since returning and will look to finish the season on a strong note. Sale had a chance to repeat as the NL’s Cy Young winner until a ribcage injury sidelined him over the summer. He’s been elite when healthy, posting a 2.35 ERA with a 32.3% strikeout rate, but he’s been limited to 115 innings and 19 starts this season.
Brewers Place Brandon Woodruff On 15-Day Injured List
The Brewers announced today that they’ve placed right-hander Brandon Woodruff on the 15-day injured list with a right lat strain. Woodruff’s IL placement is retroactive to September 18. Left-hander Robert Gasser was recalled from Triple-A in a corresponding move and is slated to start today’s game for Milwaukee.
Woodruff’s retroactive placement on the shelf means that he’ll be eligible to return in time for the start of the NLDS on October 4. Of course, that would require Woodruff to be shelved for only a minimum stint on the IL, which is far from guaranteed. According to Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Woodruff is suffering from a “moderate” lat strain in the words of manager Pat Murphy, and it is too early to tell how Woodruff’s playoff availability may be impacted by the injury. MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy reports that Woodruff is seeing a doctor in St. Louis today in order to get his injury assessed after the strain occurred during the righty’s bullpen session on Saturday.
At the very least, the news brings Woodruff’s regular season to an abrupt end. Woodruff will end the regular season with 12 starts under his belt, and a 3.20 ERA/3.18 FIP in 64 2/3 innings of work with a sensational 32.3% strikeout rate. Woodruff made just 11 starts in 2023 due to shoulder issues and ultimately went under the knife in October of that year. That caused him to miss the entire 2024 season, and an ankle injury during his rehab this season delayed his return to the big league mound until early July. He immediately slotted back into the top of Milwaukee’s rotation upon his return, and helped to sustain the hot streak that thrust the Brewers to the best record in all of baseball.
The timing of this latest ailment is surely frustrating for both the Brewers and Woodruff himself, given its proximity to the playoffs. Woodruff acknowledged as much himself in comments made to reporters (including McCalvy) this morning. Woodruff noted that he “wasn’t surprised” by the injury and noted he’s been managing his shoulder for some time, adding that a setback could have occurred in June or July and that it’s just “crappy timing” that this happened to come up right before the postseason.
With Woodruff sidelined, the Brewers’ potential postseason rotation is in flux. Freddy Peralta and Quinn Priester appear to be locks to start playoff games, but there’s little certainty outside of that. Woodruff would obviously get starts if and when he returns, and Jose Quintana could find himself in the conversation as well depending on his own recovery from injury. While those two are shelved, however, they’ll likely be forced to choose between struggling rookie Jacob Misiorowski and fellow rookie right-hander Chad Patrick to round out the rotation. Perhaps Gasser can put himself into the discussion with a strong outing today, but the southpaw has not yet pitched in the majors this year after undergoing elbow surgery last year and has just 38 innings of work in the minors under his belt this season.
Ivan Herrera To Undergo Elbow Surgery, Return To Catching After 2025 Season
Ivan Herrera is expected to undergo surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing elbow after the 2025 season comes to a close, as first reported by Jim Hayes of FanDuel Sports Network. Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat adds that Herrera is expected to be “full-go” by the time Spring Training roles around in February. The surgery is aiming to help correct his struggles with throwing behind the plate, which led the Cardinals to move him off catcher into a full-time DH role in July.
That should help facilitate a return to catching in 2026, and Jones wrote for MLB.com yesterday that Herrera has spoken with manager Oli Marmol and incoming president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom to work out a plan for an offseason program designed to get him ready to return to catching next year. Jones adds that the club’s plan for Herrera’s offseason was created with the knowledge of the youngster’s impending surgery and with plans on how to incorporate his rehab into his winter assignments.
Being able to rely on Herrera has a regular part of the club’s catching corps next year would be a game changer for the Cardinals. The 25-year-old has enjoyed a major breakout with the bat this year, as he entered today slashing .279/.366/.447 across 100 games this year before clubbing his 17th home run of the season in today’s game against the Brewers to push his wRC+ up to 134 on the season. That’s a top-25 figure in baseball among players with at least 400 plate appearances, tied with star outfielders Bryce Harper and Byron Buxton. In other words, Herrera’s 2025 season has placed him in the upper echelon of hitters across the league regardless of position.
If Herrera can make the shift back to catcher without missing a beat with the bat, he would go from being a valuable middle-of-the-order hitter to a player with legitimate star potential. Only Cal Raleigh and Will Smith have hit better than Herrera while serving as primary catcher this year, and only five other catchers even have a wRC+ of 120 or higher on the year. That’s especially valuable for a club like St. Louis that simply hasn’t gotten much offensive production from the catcher position this year. Willson Contreras remains a quality bat, but was pushed into an everyday first base role over the offseason with no signs that he could return to the club’s catching mix any time soon. That’s left the lion’s share of playing time behind the plate for Pedro Pages, who has hit just .233/.276/.368 in 109 games for the Cards this season.
Herrera would constitute a massive upgrade over Pages offensively for St. Louis, and Marmol told reporters (including Jones) yesterday that the youngster is “committed” to putting in the work necessary to enter Spring Training as part of the catching mix for 2026. Assuming that offseason program goes well, it wouldn’t be hard to imagine Herrera entering Spring Training as the favorite to start the majority of games behind the plate for the Cardinals, with Pages and Yohel Pozo in the mix for either the job backing up Herrera or to step in as the club’s catching tandem in the event that Herrera isn’t able to hack it defensively at the position even after surgery.
If Herrera is able to get most of his reps behind the dish, that would create flexibility for other position players on the club to get reps at DH and create more playing time for the rest of the club’s large positional group. Players like Alec Burleson, Nolan Gorman, and Thomas Saggese have no settled position with the Cardinals and could benefit from the flexibility created by Herrera moving to catcher and opening up more DH at-bats.
Braves Claim Chuckie Robinson
The Braves have claimed Chuckie Robinson off waivers from the Dodgers, according to a report from David O’Brien of The Athletic. Robinson was optioned to Triple-A Gwinnett rather than added to the active roster, and right-hander Daysbel Herandnez was transferred to the 60-day injured list to make room for Robinson on the 40-man roster.
Robinson, 30, has just 52 games in the majors under his belt since he made his big league debut with the Reds back in 2022. It’s not hard to see why he hasn’t gotten much playing time in the majors to this point, as he’s a career .131/.161/.192 hitter in the big leagues across 138 plate appearances. That performance leaves him with a wRC+ of -4, meaning that he’s been 104% worse than a league average hitter at the plate. While the standards for offensive contributions from catchers are less rigorous than they are for other positions on the diamond, Robinsion is a non-factor at the plate even by the standards set by pitchers in the years prior to the NL adopting the DH rule.
Given his lackluster offensive abilities, it might seem like a shock that Robinson would get any sort of attention at the big league level at all. He carves out a niche for himself by being an extremely well-regarded defender behind the plate. He’s considered a strong game caller and even was heralded by Baseball America as a top defensive catcher back in 2020. That elite glove has been enough to make Robinson a fairly attractive candidate to be a fill-in depth catcher behind a given club’s regular tandem. This year, Robinson broke into the majors with the Dodgers because Will Smith and Dalton Rushing were both injured, leaving Robinson to join Ben Rortvedt in the club’s catching tandem for a time. He similarly helped to fill in for injured starting catcher Tyler Stephenson with the Reds during his debut season of 2022.
Now that Robinson is in Atlanta, it seems likely he’ll be tasked with helping to back up Drake Baldwin and Sandy Leon for the last few weeks of the season. The Braves have one of the best catching tandems in baseball when healthy, with Baldwin and Sean Murphy sharing time behind the plate, but Murphy recently underwent surgery that left the club without a third-string catcher behind Leon on the 40-man roster. Had Leon or Baldwin suffered an injury, the Braves would’ve been forced to turn to Jason Delay (who is not currently on the 40-man roster) or find an option outside the organization. It’s unclear if the Braves have interest in keeping Robinson in the fold in some capacity headed into the offseason or if he’s simply a fill-in depth piece brought in to help shore up the catcher position while Murphy is rehabbing. Even if that ends up being the case, Robinson’s strong defensive reputation should make it fairly easy to find a minor league deal with one organization or another.
Diamondbacks Designate Jake Woodford For Assignment
The Diamondbacks announced today that they’ve designated right-hander Jake Woodford for assignment. Right-hander Austin Pope‘s contract was selected from Triple-A to replace Woodford on the 40-man and active rosters.
Woodford, 29 next month, was a first-round pick by the Cardinals back in 2015 who made his MLB debut during the shortened 2020 campaign. He struggled to a 5.57 ERA as a long reliever in that rookie year, but enjoyed better results come 2021 and ’22 with a respectable 3.26 ERA and 3.93 FIP in 116 frames across those two seasons. His 15.4% strikeout rate against a 7.5% walk rate was decidedly lackluster, but he helped to make up for that by generating grounders at an impressive 45.8% clip. That peripheral-beating sleight of hand did not last, however, and in 2023 he posted an ERA north of 6.00 on the year before being non-tendered by St. Louis during the 2023-24 offseason.
Since 2024, Woodford has jumped between teams as a journeyman without logging more than a handful of innings in any one place. He pitched for the White Sox and the Pirates at the big league level last year, logging 35 innings of work with a 7.97 ERA despite a 4.94 FIP. He posted a more respectable 3.93 ERA at the Triple-A level that year, but ultimately found himself in free agency once again when he was designated for assignment by Pittsburgh over the offseason. He landed with Colorado on a minor league deal, which appeared to be a solid fit on paper given his past success as a ground ball pitcher. Unfortunately, he didn’t manage to break camp with the club and was granted his release just before Opening Day 2025.
Once the 2025 season began, Woodford after pitched at Triple-A for the Yankees and Cubs with middling results for both affiliates before catching on with Arizona on a major league deal in early July. He’s made 22 appearances with the Diamondbacks since then, though his work hasn’t been especially impressive. Across 36 1/3 innings of work, Woodford has posted a 6.44 ERA with a 4.27 FIP and a strikeout rate of just 13.5%. With the Diamondbacks still hanging on in the playoff race, it’s hardly a surprise that they’ve opted to cut a pitcher with Woodford’s limited success from the roster in favor of a fresh face.
That fresh face is Pope, who was a 15th-rounder for the Snakes back in 2019 and will celebrate his 27th birthday next month. Pope has a 4.60 ERA in 29 1/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level this year, though those results aren’t quite as weak as they might sound given the fact that Arizona’s Reno affiliate plays in the Pacific Coast League’s offense-friendly environment. Pope’s first appearances with the Snakes will be his big league debut, and he’ll be looking to show out enough over the coming days to convince the Diamondbacks to keep him on their 40-man roster throughout the coming offseason.
Tigers Designate Charlie Morton For Assignment
The Tigers announced this morning that they’ve designated right-hander Charlie Morton for assignment. Right-hander Tanner Rainey had his contract selected to replace Morton on the 40-man and active rosters.
This surely isn’t the ending that either Morton or the Tigers were hoping for when Detroit acquired from the Orioles on the day of the trade deadline. Even then, however, Morton was in the midst of an up-and-down season. His first five starts with Baltimore saw him get torched to a 10.89 ERA as he walked 13.9% of his opponents. That led him to be demoted to the bullpen before the end of April, and he spent roughly a month in a multi-inning relief role before injuries in the rotation created an opening for the righty to start again.
Once Morton was returned to the rotation on May 26, the rest of his time in Baltimore saw him pitch to the mid-to-back of the rotation results the Orioles were hoping for when they acquired him with a 3.88 ERA and 4.17 FIP across 11 starts and 60 1/3 innings of work. In that time, he struck out 22.7% of his opponents and walked 8.9%. Those numbers were serviceable enough that the Tigers decided to bet on Morton’s recent performance and history of mid-rotation success, including his 3.87 ERA in four years with Atlanta.
It’s a bet that did not pay off. While Morton threw six innings of one-run ball during his first start as a Tiger and pitched to a perfectly solid 3.63 ERA with a 3.77 FIP across his first four outings (despite a clunker against the Angels in his first start at Comerica Park), the wheels came off with a five-run outing against the Athletics in West Sacramento at the end of August. Things only got worse in September, as he pitched to a 12.75 ERA across four starts with more walks (13) than strikeouts (11) while averaging just three innings per start. Morton’s struggles reached a crescendo on Friday, when he surrendered six runs on five hits and two walks while striking out two in 1 1/3 innings of work against his former teammates with the Braves.
The Tigers will now put Morton through waivers. It’s likely at this late stage in the calendar that he will go unclaimed, and if that comes to pass Morton has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and head into free agency early. All told, the veteran will walk away from the 2025 season with a 5.89 ERA and 4.98 FIP across 140 2/3 innings of work. That includes a 7.09 ERA and 5.20 FIP in his nine starts in a Tigers uniform. That tough performance makes Detroit’s decision to cut ties with Morton somewhat unsurprising, and even after Friday’s game Morton and manager A.J. Hinch both told reporters (including Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press) they didn’t know if Morton would pitch again for Detroit.
Perhaps if the Tigers were in a more stable position in the playoff picture then it would be easier for them to give Morton another opportunity to get right. The Guardians’ recent surge toward the top of the standings has put a lot of pressure on Detroit ahead of the final week of the season, however. Cleveland currently sits just one game back of the Tigers in the AL Central after winning ten games in a row while the Tigers have lost five straight. Detroit’s playoff odds according to Fangraphs are down to just 85.1% entering play today after sitting at approximately 100% as recently as September 6. That increased pressure is forcing more aggressive moves than other teams that have already clinched a playoff spot are making at this point in the calendar.
As for Rainey, the right-hander pitched for the Pirates earlier this year but struggled to a 10.57 ERA in 11 appearances before being designated for assignment. He eventually caught on with the Tigers on a minor league deal and has posted a 2.66 ERA in 19 appearances for Triple-A Toledo. That success in the minors isn’t likely to outweigh his career 5.44 ERA in 209 big league appearances, but perhaps Rainey will look good enough in a couple of appearances in the majors that it could help him either hold onto a 40-man roster spot with Detroit this offseason or find a contract elsewhere.
Mets Designate Chris Devenski For Assignment
The Mets announced this morning that they’ve designated right-hander Chris Devenski for assignment. Devenski’s spot on the active roster will go to left-hander Sean Manaea, who has been activated from the paternity list.
Devenski, 35 in November, signed a minor league deal with the Mets last offseason and has served in an up-and-down role for the club this year. He’s made 13 appearances for the Mets in total this season and was already DFA’d by New York once before in late July, though he signed a major league deal with the club just a few days later and has remained in the organization ever since. All together, he’s posted a 2.16 ERA with a 3.51 FIP in 16 2/3 innings of work while striking out 21.5% of his opponents against a 7.7% walk rate.
Those are perfectly solid numbers, and his 3.35 ERA and 20.8% strikeout rate across 35 appearances with Triple-A Syracuse this year is largely consistent with that. Despite the minimal playing time at the big league level, 2025 represents something of a return to form for Devenski. A 25th-rounder drafted by the White Sox all the way back in 2011, Devenski made his big league debut in Houston during the 2016 season and was a big part of the Astros bullpen in the early days of their dynasty. In 305 1/3 innings from 2016 to 2019, Devenski posted a 3.21 ERA with a 3.49 FIP and even picked up an All-Star appearance during the 2017 campaign.
Unfortunately, he’s been unable to find his footing since struggling in a small role with the Astros during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign. Since the start of 2020, Devenski has bounced between six organizations at the big league level. Prior to joining the Mets this year, he had pitched to a 6.46 ERA with a 5.30 FIP in 82 appearances over the past half decade, including a 6.75 ERA in 26 2/3 innings of work for the Rays last year. If some club views Devenski’s strong performance in a minor role with the Mets this year as evidence he’s put his years of struggles since leaving Houston behind him, then it wouldn’t be a shock to see Devenski garner some interest on the free agent market this winter.
As for Manaea, the Mets recently moved him to the bullpen for the remainder of the season amid his struggles to find success in the rotation this year. That move has paid off so far, as the lefty threw five innings of one-run ball in long relief against the Padres last week. Now that Manaea is back from the paternity list, he’ll likely have another opportunity or two to pitch this week as the Mets fight to hold onto their spot in the playoffs amid strong pushes from Cincinnati and Arizona to get back into the conversation.
Pirates GM Ben Cherington Discusses Future, Offseason Plans
It’s been another tough season for the Pirates, and things went poorly enough early in the year that manager Derek Shelton was fired just six weeks into the regular season. While the club showed at least some signs of life in the aftermath of Shelton’s firing, with a 52-51 record under interim manager Don Kelly through September 4, they’ve gone on to lose 12 of their last 14 games and now look sure to end the season on a sour note. With a 66-89 record entering play today, Pittsburgh is more than 20 games underwater for the year and has already locked up a worse record than the club posted in back-to-back 86-loss seasons during the 2023 and ’24 campaigns.
A step backwards in Paul Skenes‘s first full season in the major leagues could not possibly have been something Pittsburgh was expecting, and none of the team’s woes can be attributed to their ace given his 2.02 ERA and status as the heavy favorite for the NL Cy Young award. The problem lies elsewhere in the organization, and yesterday GM Ben Cherington was asked by reporters about his job status and plans for the future. Cherington (as relayed by Kevin Gorman of TribLive) told reporters that he “hasn’t heard anything to the contrary” from ownership when asked if he expects to return for 2026.
“I don’t know if any of us in this room ever have full assurance of anything, but I want to help the Pirates win more games,” Cherington told reporters. “That’s it. I don’t do the job because of the job. I do the job because I want to be a part of making this thing work. Winning more games and being able to leave PNC Park at night feeling better and everybody feeling better. That’s why I do it. I still want to do it. I badly want to do it.”
Cherington went on to discuss the status of Kelly headed into the offseason, and made clear that he’s holding off on evaluating the interim manager’s performance until the season comes to a close. He went on to say that he expected Kelly would do “a really good job” in the role from the moment he took over back in May, and that his performance “is one that’s not surprising” to him. While Cherington’s review of Kelly’s work was largely positive, he also noted that not having a manager locked in for 2026 at this point creates “an opportunity to really have a culture that feels different” next season. If Pittsburgh brass think a significant change in culture is necessary to get the team back on track, it could be argued that Kelly isn’t the right person to change that culture after spending six seasons in the organization between his time as bench coach and interim manager.
Despite uncertainty in the dugout and the team’s poor performance this year, Cherington added that he expects the team to contend next season. At the same time, he acknowledged that “you can’t just hope it’s going to happen” and that “some really important work” needs to be done to improve the club around Skenes. The most obvious place improvement will be needed is on offense, as Spencer Horwitz and his 107 wRC+ represent the only above-average offensive contribution the club got from any of its hitters this year. Perhaps the team can expect better performances from Oneil Cruz and Bryan Reynolds next year given their track records, but the rest of the lineup has posted uninspiring numbers with little reason for optimism going forward.
The microscopic budget handed down by ownership is a perennial challenge in Pittsburgh, but Cherington and the Pirates’ front office do have an exciting farm system and a deep pitching staff from which they could try to swing trades that would upgrade the offense. Top prospect Konnor Griffin isn’t going anywhere, of course, but with Skenes, Jared Jones, Mitch Keller, Johan Oviedo, Mike Burrows, Bubba Chandler, Hunter Barco, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft, and Carmen Mlodzinski all likely to be in the mix for starts next year there should be plenty of room to move an arm or three for help on offense. Indeed, that’s how they were able to acquire Horwitz, as they traded Luis Ortiz to the Guardians to acquire their first baseman last offseason shortly after he joined Cleveland in the Andres Gimenez trade. If they can follow a similar road map more aggressively this winter, they should be able to leverage their bevy of young pitching talent in order to augment the offense without breaking the bank.
Will Smith Suffering From Hairline Fracture In Hand
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters (including Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic) today that catcher Will Smith had undergone additional scans following his placement on the injured list last week, and that testing revealed a hairline fracture in Smith’s injured hand. The news makes it “doubtful,” in Roberts’s words, that he’ll play again during the regular season this year. More concerning is that whether or not Smith will be available for the start of the playoffs remains “up in the air.”
Smith, who made his third All-Star game earlier this year, enjoyed a career season with the Dodgers this year as he hit .296/404/.497 with a 152 wRC+ in 110 games. He swatted 17 homers and paired a decent 20.4% strikeout rate with an elite 14.7% walk rate to emerge as one of the league’s top on-base threats, and between his impressive offense and solid defense behind the plate put together 4.1 fWAR in just 436 trips to the plate.
Arguably the best right-handed hitter in the Dodgers’ lineup this year thanks to Mookie Betts‘s tough first half this year, losing Smith for any part of the postseason would be a crushing blow for the Dodgers. Since his first full 162-game season in 2021, Smith has averaged 126 games played a year and is a fixture of the L.A. lineup with more innings caught over the past five years than anyone other than J.T. Realmuto. Smith’s combination of durability and excellence allowed the Dodgers to not worry much about the quality of their catching depth this year, so much so that they even designated longtime backup Austin Barnes for assignment back in May to make room on the roster for unproven youngster Dalton Rushing.
Rushing has not taken to the big leagues in his part-time role, and has slashed just .184/.246/.288 with a wRC+ of 49 and a 39.1% strikeout rate across 47 games in the majors. Rushing’s combination of lackluster offense and unimpressive defense behind the plate have seemingly left the Dodgers without much confidence in his ability to handle the jump from little-used backup to potential playoff starter, and as a result of that Roberts indicated today that Ben Rortvedt instead be tasked with serving as the Dodgers’ primary catcher while Smith is out of commission.
Just five days shy from his 28th birthday, Rortvedt turned in a respectable enough season with the Rays last year but this year has hit just .165/.250/.196 in 39 games between L.A. and Tampa. It’s a performance that offers virtually no reason for optimism about his ability to contribute offensively, but Rortvedt is a very well-regarded game caller who gets solid marks from advanced metrics for his glove behind the plate. That solid defense should help create a higher floor than Rushing could provide for a Dodgers team that will need to rely on a bullpen that has looked shaky in recent weeks to preserve any leads passed to them by an elite starting rotation. With that said, it would of course be preferable if Smith’s bat could take some pressure off Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman to carry the offense headed into the playoffs.
Brewers Considering Relief Role For Jacob Misiorowski
The Brewers are considering the possibility of using Jacob Misiorowski out of the bullpen over the final week of the season as they determine what role to use him in during the playoffs, manager Pat Murphy told reporters (including Curt Hogg of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) last night.
Misiorowski, 23, made waves when he debuted back in June by posting massive strikeout totals in the first few starts of his career and landed a somewhat controversial All-Star nod just five starts into his MLB career. At that time, he had a 2.81 ERA and a 33.7% career strikeout rate. He turned in another pair of strong (albeit abbreviated) starts to round out the month of July and bring his ERA down to 2.70 while his strikeout rate crept up to an incredible 36.4%. Unfortunately, he would miss the first two weeks of August due to a tibia contusion after he was hit by a comebacker on the mound.
Since returning from the injured list, Misiorowski has begun to look somewhat over-matched at times. A five-run blowup against the Reds in Cincinnati where the right-hander recorded just four outs marked an inauspicious return from the shelf, and he left the month of August having posted a 9.58 ERA in three starts. That was easy enough to dismiss as a fluke given the continued excellence of his peripherals, highlighted by a game against the Diamondbacks where Misiorowski struck out ten of his opponents in just five innings of work while walking only one.
The right-hander’s September struggles have been harder to dismiss, however. The run prevention hasn’t been as significantly troubling, as he’s surrendered just a 4.50 ERA. Unlike his disastrous August, however, the peripheral numbers suggests Misiorowski’s poor results this month have been entirely earned. His strikeout rate has plummeted to just 22.6% over four September starts, and with three of his eight career home runs allowed in just those last four starts he’s starting to have problems with the long ball as well.
All told, Misiorowski has a 6.23 ERA and 4.11 FIP across seven starts since returning from the injured list. Those are, put simply, not the numbers of a playoff caliber starter. The Brewers aren’t an organization that’s afraid to buck conventional wisdom, so perhaps those poor results don’t necessarily rule him out for getting the ball in a playoff game. With that being said, it’s hard to argue with Brandon Woodruff and Freddy Peralta as the club’s top two starters. Quinn Priester has more than earned a spot in the playoff rotation as well at this point, and in situations where a fourth starter is needed it would be understandable if the Brewers preferred to go with someone like rookie righty Chad Patrick or (if he returns from the injured list in time) veteran southpaw Jose Quintana for that final rotation spot.
If the Brewers are seriously considering leaving Misiorowski out of their playoff rotation, then it stands to reason that getting him some experience coming out of the bullpen over the final week of the regular season would be a good idea. It could allow Misiorowski to get used to pitching for just one or two innings at a time, allow him to worry less about trying to sustain his elite stuff over multiple innings, and allow the club to get a preview of how effective he could be if allowed to let loose in a relief role. For an organization that has previously relied on elite bullpen talents like Josh Hader and Devin Williams in big playoff moments, adding another arm with sky-high upside to the relief corps ahead of October can’t hurt as the Brewers look to win their first playoff series since 2017.