Brewers toss two shutouts, but Myers injury overshadows success

Myers exits with oblique discomfort

In split-squad action today, the Milwaukee Brewers got a pair of shutouts against the Angels and Athletics. That was the good news: the bad news was that Tobias Myers, who started for Milwaukee in Tempe versus the Angels, had to leave in the second inning of his start with “discomfort” in his left oblique. That news overshadowed an excellent day for Brewer pitchers, including Opening Day starter Freddy Peralta.

Both offenses got off to hot starts today. At American Family Fields of Phoenix, the Brewers jumped all over A’s starter Mitch Spence in the second inning. After Joey Ortiz was hit by a pitch with one out, Manuel Margot and Jorge Alfaro hit back-to-back doubles, the second of which scored two runs. Milwaukee got a third run when Cooper Pratt (who started for Brice Turang, who was a late scratch—there is no concern there) knocked an RBI single to right. The inning didn’t end there, though, as Sal Frelick followed with a single that set up a three-run bomb by William Contreras. It was no cheapie, either.

The Brewers still weren’t done. A Christian Yelich single knocked Spence (temporarily) out of the game, and then Rhys Hoskins followed with his sixth homer of the spring, which gave the Brewers eight runs in the inning.

Meanwhile, in Tempe, the less-experienced Brewers team also took an early lead, though they did it more with small ball than with the homer. The Brewers started with back-to-back singles by Isaac Collins and Garrett Mitchell, and Collins scored an a fielder’s choice from Oliver Dunn. Dunn moved up a base on a wild pitch and then another by tagging on a flyout, and then he scored on a two-out RBI single by Jake Bauers. In the second inning, Milwaukee added a run on a sac fly from Collins.

But the big news in that second inning in Tempe was the exit of Myers, who signaled to the dugout with two outs in bottom of the frame. There was nothing obvious when looking at the replay, but Myers was clearly in discomfort; the broadcast later reported that he was removed with “left oblique discomfort.” It doesn’t sound like a major injury, but oblique injuries for pitchers can nag, and this very much puts Myers’ Opening Day roster status in doubt.

We will wait for word on the Myers injury, but if he isn’t able to join the rotation out of the gate, that leaves a spot open, assuming that Brandon Woodruff (who makes his Cactus League debut tomorrow!) won’t quite be ready to go to start the season. This could be good news for Elvin Rodriguez, who got off to a good start this spring but has been hit around a bit more in his last two outings, the latter of which was his first start of the Cactus League season. Rodriguez is on a major league contract, and he’s already on the 40-man roster, so slotting him in would be easy from a transaction standpoint. Tyler Alexander is in a similar contract situation, but he’s had a rougher spring and hasn’t started any games.

It’s possible that the Brewers could turn to a minor leaguer: Logan Henderson has looked great this spring, and he would probably be the top option among players who haven’t debuted yet. This is a slightly more ambitious move, and the team might prefer to see what they can get out of their veteran guys before starting Henderson’s service time clock.

As for the rest of the games, things settled down after the big early starts. In Tempe, Garrett Mitchell made a couple of nice plays in the outfield, and the Brewers added a run in the sixth on Isaac Collins’ third single of the day, this one following an Andruw Monasterio triple. Mitchell also had two hits in this game, and Tyler Black was 0-for-1 but walked three times. After Myers left with the injury, the Brewers got scoreless outings from Nick Merkel, Connor Thomas (whose ERA stands at 0.96; I think he’s going to make the team, folks), Grant Anderson, Abner Uribe, and Bayden Root.

At home in Phoenix, neither team scored outside of the eight-spot the Brewers put up in the second. Peralta shined with 5 ¹⁄₃ scoreless innings in which he didn’t walk any and struck out four, lowering his spring ERA to 2.61. Trevor Megill, Jared Koenig, Easton McGee, and Grant Wolfram also made scoreless appearances in this game, and the team didn’t allow a walk until the ninth inning.

Myers spoke to reporters after he was pulled and said he wasn’t overly concerned, though Pat Murphy took a more pessimistic approach and, according to Adam McCalvy, said he was “really concerned.”

If Myers has to miss regular season time with this injury, it’s a sudden hit to the depth of a staff that projected to go eight deep with quality starting pitchers. We knew that Robert Gasser was out for most of the season and that Woodruff was unlikely to be ready to start the season, but the injuries to DL Hall and Aaron Ashby were unexpected. Add Myers, and the Brewers now have a full big-league starting rotation of injured pitchers.

You can catch the Brewers twice tomorrow, as they’ll be on FanDuel Sports Network for the afternoon game at 3:10 p.m. for Woodruff’s spring debut and again on MLB Network at 6:40 p.m. for their spring breakout game, which Jacob Misiorowski will start.