Lakeland, Fla. – It felt like he just disappeared. Like some kind of alien abduction. One minute Beau Brieske was a heavily-used bullpen weapon and the next, poof, he was gone.
“It was,” Brieske said on Friday, “a rough year.”
If you’ve forgotten, Brieske was dynamite down the stretch and into the playoffs in 2024. He allowed just two runs 18.2 innings from late August through September and then he worked in six playoff games, allowing one run – a gut-punch homer to the Guardians’ David Fry in Game 4 of the ALDS – in six innings.
He was a force.
And then he was gone.
“It was just a full season riddled with injuries,” he said.
It started with an ankle sprain in spring training. He took treatment on it and kept pitching. Which, as he admits looking back on it, was the fatal mistake.
“If I could have it back, I would’ve given that more emphasis, knowing that could go up the chain,” he said. “I wouldn’t have tried to pitch through it. I would’ve shut it down. If I could do it all over again, I would’ve shut it down, get that 100 percent clean and go back.”
Instead, he ended up compensating for the pain in the ankle, which changed his mechanics, which led, ultimately, to an injury to his flexor tendon. It didn’t help matters that he re-sprained the same ankle fielding a ground ball in Minnesota on April 11.
He pitched in 22 games before the Tigers optioned him back to Triple-A. He made just nine appearances for Toledo before the decision was made to shut it down and send him to Lakeland for a full rehabilitation on his flexor tendon.
“I probably had my best outing of the year two outings prior to the injury,” Brieske said. “The whole first half of the season was trying to pitch through an ankle injury. It created some bad habits.
“The plan in the middle of the season (when he was sent down) was to just get back on track. Try to move the way I usually move. The shapes on my pitches were different. My mechanics, my extension, anything you can think of was just a little bit off.”
A clean, 13-pitch inning at Columbus on July 6 gave Brieske some hope. Everything seemed to click back into place. Two days later in a five-run outing in Omaha, he felt the flexor tendon tighten.
Season over.
“It was a hard year,” he said.
One question lingered. The organization asked it. Brieske certainly wondered about it. How much did the heavy, high-intensity usage at the end of 2024 impact the arm issues last year?
“Everybody wants a ‘why’ when things like that happen,” manager AJ Hinch said. “We do try to figure out every small detail that we can but you don’t always come to a productive conclusion.”
Brieske has had conflicting thoughts about it.
“I’d be lying if I said that thought (about the heavy usage) doesn’t creep into your mind,” he said. “Especially when you’re going through what feels like the worst season I ever had from a performance perspective and how my body felt. But honestly, I felt I had a great offseason leading into last year.
“We covered all the bases. I took the time off I felt like I needed to recover. I was taking care of my body. I had a very good build-up and a proper throwing program. In my opinion, it was just, I tweaked my ankle.”
The good news is, this is all trending toward a happy ending for Brieske and the Tigers. He’s back. All the way back.
“Mentally, physically, Beau came into camp incredibly strong and that’s an encouraging step for him,” Hinch said. “I don’t think with our bullpen that a lot of people have talked about Beau Brieske as an impact piece and he very much could be now that he’s healthy.”
Brieske may be a longshot to break camp with the Tigers but that’s not his focus. He’s building for the long haul.
“As long as I stay healthy,” he said. “Just doing what I know I can do and knowing at the end of the year we want to be in a position to get back. I want to be at my best at that time. Not now. I want to be at my best at the very end of the year.”
He can still feel the adrenaline rush he had down the stretch in 2024.
“You can’t compare anything to that,” Brieske said. “That’s what we all want and that’s all I want to focus on now. I don’t care what my path is, how it starts, how it goes. I just need to make sure when that time comes, I’m ready.”
Chris.McCosky@detroitnews.com
@cmccosky
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Lost and found: Tigers reliever Beau Brieske bounces back after injury-riddled season
Reporting by Chris McCosky, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
