CINCINNATI – When Pat Murphy informed reporters prior to his team’s series opener against the Cincinnati Reds on June 22 that the Milwaukee Brewers would be returning to a five-man rotation in short order, he was also quick to include that Brandon Sproat would not be the pitcher getting bumped to the bullpen.
“It’s an easy read to just say, ‘He’s good for two innings.’ There’s more than that,” Murphy said. “We think that if Sproat can get over this hurdle, it could lead to him being a solid starter because he’s got the arsenal. He’s better suited as a starter.”
Sproat made good on that faith one day later.
With six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts, no walks and one hit allowed as the Brewers won, 2-0, over the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park June 23, Sproat not only replicated Brandon Woodruff’s exact line from the night before but also delivered the most impressive start of his young big-league career.
“He was dominant,” Murphy said. “He was great. Best outing of the year. Best stuff of the year.”
With hitters having difficulties with the sun and shadows in the early innings, Sproat took full advantage.
He struck out at least one hitter in every inning, touched 99.7 mph in the first inning and took a no-hitter into the sixth. Had it not been for some calf tightness in the fifth, he would have continued deeper into the game, but nevertheless finished with 18 swings and misses and a 38% whiff rate.
Even recently, he went six one-run innings in Las Vegas on June 10 and threw three of the more dominant innings you’ll see from any pitcher the last time out June 17 against Cleveland before cramping and completely unraveling in a treacherous fourth.
He’s never looked like this, though. No mistakes. Just overpowering pure stuff and complete dominance for six innings.
“Being athletic. I think the word we used the other day was convicted athleticism,” Sproat said. “That allows me on the mound to be free. The arm just feels real whippy through the motion. That’s been my biggest takeaway.”
Why Sproat needs to watch where he steps
Brewers pitching coaches Chris Hook and Jim Henderson have been putting in extensive work with Sproat to correct his natural tendency to cross-step, a mechanical flaw that causes his hips to be closed off and deprives him of power and accuracy as he strides to the plate.
“We got him with a bit of a cross-step,” Henderson said. “He loses his pelvis, loses his back knee, a little knee-over-toe. It’s more mechanical stuff. It’s been constant working to try and get his alignment right, get his pelvis underneath him.”
While playing flat ground catch and warming up in the bullpen, Sproat began aligning a set of small cones in a row to help force himself to stay in direction with his left leg as he strides to the mound. Early in the year, this was Sproat’s greatest battle; now, he says, he’s been more consistent since June 5 in Denver thanks to steady work with Hook and Henderson.
“I’ve stepped across my body for years,” Sproat said. “Every pitcher does it a little bit but mine is kind of extreme.”
There’s also attention to what he’s doing with his other leg, too.
If you watch Sproat’s plant leg as he goes into his delivery, you’ll see what Henderson means by “knee over toe.” As Sproat loads up his momentum on his back leg, his shin should remain as vertical as possible for as long as possible, staying perpendicular to the ground rather than bending forward in order to generate ground force and stability.
“A lot of guys get knee-over-toe at some point in their deliveries,” Henderson said. “It’s how long can we hold off until we get there. You can see it from the center field broadcast camera when he starts getting cross-bodied. The root of that is the knee getting in. Whether that’s fatigue or whatever it is, it’s getting back to old habits.”
In the fateful fourth against Cleveland, as fatigue and frustration set in, Sproat’s knee began to drift more forward. In conjunction, then, he began stepping a bit farther out with his front leg.
You could see the difference from Sproat’s mechanics in that inning against the Guardians and most of his outing as he dominated the Reds.
His knee was less bent, his direction to home straighter, his results off the charts.
Mental toughness matters for Sproat, too
Fatigue and mechanics have hurt Sproat. But just as importantly, Sproat has also failed to help himself out at times.
The work on Sproat’s mechanics has been substantive, but the undertone of any conversation with someone with the Brewers has strongly hinted at the mental side of the process.
Take, for instance, that fateful fourth last time out.
An expletive shouted into his glove following a leadoff walk showcased a critical element of Sproat’s development: The Brewers not only want his knee over the heel as he pitches, but also his mind over the plate.
“We want him to compete against the hitter and not himself,” Henderson said. “We want to encourage that as much as possible, whether it’s the pregame hitter or mound visits or in between. It’s him versus the hitter. You have to be in compete mode.
“Be over the plate and not over the rubber.”
Pinpoint focus was clearly there this time around.
In the fourth, Sproat opened with a 94 mph sinker, four mph down from his average through three innings. His stuff was showing signs of diminishing. When his mechanics got a bit out of whack and he hit JJ Bleday in the foot with a curveball, his body language in the immediate aftermath wasn’t great. An ensuing wild pitch to advance Bleday to scoring position could have led to further problems.
Instead, Sproat found his focus and executed three pitches – a cutter and four-seam up, a sweeper down – to strike out Sal Stewart and emerge without any damage.
When the Reds led off the sixth with their first hit of the day, Sproat, while battling through the calf issue, spotted a curve at the bottom of the zone for a grounder and then struck out Blake Dunn to end his night.
And what a night it was.
Sproat, in pitching Milwaukee’s fifth straight quality start, became the first rookie in franchise history with double-digit strikeouts, no walks and one or fewer hits in a game.
It was dominant. It made Henderson and the Brewers look quite prescient, too.
“He’s got the ingredients of a starter,” he said before the game. “We feel like we’ve seen signs of it that he will break through. I do feel confident every time he takes the mound, takes the ball that it’s going to be that game.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brandon Sproat showed why the Brewers haven’t lost faith in him
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
