Brewers’ Brandon Woodruff has benefited from extra rest this year
The Milwaukee Brewers’ plan to expand their rotation by one pitcher at the outset of the season to keep everyone fresher coming off the 60-game pandemic sprint of 2020 has by and large been a rousing success.
Aside from several bouts of COVID-19, a two-week stint on the injured list for a sore right shoulder for Freddy Peralta (which ended Friday against the St. Louis Cardinals) and some plain old bad luck for Brett Anderson, the team’s group of starters has been both healthy and productive.
And maybe just as important, there’s more in the tank as the Brewers look to lock up the NL Central and a fourth consecutive spot in the postseason over the final month.
Staff co-ace Brandon Woodruff left little doubt he feels like he’s at the peak of his physical powers despite the fact that each successive start he makes – like Corbin Burnes, Peralta and Adrian Houser – sets a new career standard for him.
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“Certainly,” he said when asked if he feels fresher at this point due to the additional rest he’s accrued. “Getting to September healthy, and hopefully staying healthy. Our plan all along has been, ‘How are we going to be able to perform our best and be healthy for the whole year coming off 60 games?’
“That’s the challenge. Thankfully – and luckily enough – we’re healthy up to this point. We plan on going another two months; that’s our mindset.”
Entering Friday, Woodruff ranked eighth in the major leagues with 157⅓ innings and he has logged those in 26 starts, a total that leaves him two short of tying for the lead.
Woodruff’s previous highs were 22 starts and 121⅔ innings in 2019, a season highlighted for him personally by his first all-star nod but one that also saw him miss two months with an oblique strain.
With only a few more scheduled starts, Woodruff will fall short of the 200-inning mark, an important benchmark for any starting pitcher. But with 185 strikeouts, Woodruff is within striking distance of 200 in that category.
Any way you slice it, it’s been a successful and productive run to date for the 28-year-old, who’s 9-7 with a 2.35 earned run average and a WHIP of 0.94 – numbers that have him squarely in the conversation for the Cy Young Award in the NL – with the stage set by the team’s conservative handling of Woodruff and the rest of his rotation mates.
“If we had stayed five (days), you’re looking at mid-30s. I thought about it midway through the summer that it’d catch up to you and it’d wear you down,” he said. “We’ve even had some times where we’ve gone on seven (days of rest). So, I think it’s helped.
“The front office and the coaching staff has been really smart about it. A lot of us are hard-headed about it. We want to go out and pitch, we want to compete and we don’t want to mess up with routine and scheduling. But we understand there’s a bigger picture, and the crazy thing is it’s all playing out right now and that’s awesome.
“I can’t tell you if they envisioned this happening like it has. But you know what? It has, and we believe in ourselves and we believe we can go out and pitch against anybody and beat anybody.”
