Sometime by the end of June, if things continue going as they have been, Garrett Mitchell will set a new career high for games played.
It’s a milestone the 27-year-old Milwaukee Brewers center fielder has kept tucked away in the back of his mind for a while.
“I know I’m coming up on the games,” Mitchell said recently. “Not thinking about it too much, though.”
Mitchell is likely to cross the 60-game threshold Tuesday, June 16, when the Brewers open a three-game interleague series against the Cleveland Guardians at American Family Field.
He’ll be one of six core players on the team to have played 60 or more times so far, leaving him nine off the mark he reached in 2024 when he accounted for 2.1 wins above replacement and hit a massive home run against the New York Mets in Game 2 of the teams’ National League Wild-Card Series.
“I think, for me, I’ve stayed patient and kind of stayed the course,” Mitchell continued. “I understand that part of it is you want to see results right away. But I also know that I’ve had lots of time of not [playing] so part of it is like, ‘You’ll get better as you continue to play, accumulate more at-bats, be out there on the field.’
“So for me now it’s kind of like we’re getting enough at-bats and kind of started to get more into a rhythm where it’s feeling a little bit more comfortable. Obviously, I still always have high expectations for myself, no matter how much time I missed or anything like that, like I expect myself to be good in the moment, right?
“But I do understand that part of that is it does take time, so I haven’t been stressed about it, you know? I’ve shown up the same way every single day since the first day of spring until now with the same expectations.”
The key, of course, has been health.
It’s something that, up until this season – knock on wood – has eluded the Brewers’ 2020 first-round pick.
A knee injury in 2021 limited him to 64 games in his first full professional season. An oblique strain left him at 96 games played in 2022, although he made his major-league debut and hit .311 with an .832 on-base plus slugging in 28 games.
Mitchell tore up his left shoulder 19 games into 2023 and missed all but the final three games of that season after undergoing surgery. In 2024 he broke a finger in a spring training batting-practice mishap and missed nearly the entire first half of the season before returning and finally realizing some of his immense promise.
Looking forward to building on that momentum in 2025, Mitchell instead played only the first month before suffering a cruel double whammy – first an oblique strain that sidelined him for six weeks, then a horrible injury to his left shoulder that necessitated another surgery and would have left even the strongest-willed person rightly asking, “Why me?”
But Mitchell healed yet again, did the work, made it all the way back and has made it through an entire spring training as well as the first two-plus months of 2026 as, by and large, the Brewers’ everyday center fielder.
Garrett Mitchell showing flashes of immense talent but still prone to strikeouts
His line so far has been solid, albeit with room for improvement: A .246 average, four home runs, 33 runs batted in (fourth-most on the team) and an OPS of .755 (fourth among qualified Brewers) with six stolen bases.
There has been far too much whiff – a team-high 77 in 187 at-bats, a career-long issue for Mitchell – but he’s also already walked a career-best 28 times, which has helped generate a respectable .349 on-base percentage (fourth among qualified Brewers).
A look at Mitchell’s peripheral stats further shows a player whose immense physical ability allows him to hit the ball extremely hard (his 115.5-mph homer at Target Field with an elite swing of 79.1 mph a prime example) and whose eye is more than solid (93rd percentile chase rate, 86th percentile walk rate). Yet, he is frustratingly prone to swinging and missing (second percentile whiff rate, first percentile strikeout percentage).
When Mitchell gets on base, he’s a major weapon with 97th percentile sprint speed (29.7 feet per second is best on the Brewers and 15th in the major leagues). Defensively, Mitchell has the 16th-strongest throwing arm in the majors (sixth-best among center fielders), but the overall consistency hasn’t been there as he’s accounted for only two outs above average and zero defensive runs saved.
What does Mitchell’s skipper make of his production?
“I mean, he may be the most talented player on the field in terms of baseball talent,” Pat Murphy said. “He has to understand that he sometimes isn’t ready every pitch and sometimes puts himself in a real bad count. There is a bunch of swing and miss in there and he’s working on that.
“But he’s starting to understand himself better. He’s gaining confidence, and that helps.”
Asked what he’s been most pleased with, Mitchell’s answer isn’t the least bit surprising.
“I think it just starts with health,” he said without hesitation. “We talk about expectations and numbers, but for me, the way I think is if I’m available, the numbers will take care of themselves. It’s just being consistent and being out there, and so for me that’s been my favorite part – being available every day and prepared to play, whatever is asked of me.
“So, it’s fun. Can’t really ask for anything more.”
So far in June Mitchell has produced a .308 average, one homer, five RBI and a .906 OPS in 10 games.
Overall, he’s also received his longest leash when it comes to facing left-handed pitching, a limiting factor for Mitchell earlier in his career.
A knee injury suffered by Brandon Lockridge and season-long offensive struggles by Blake Perkins – the team’s two right-handed-hitting options not named Jackson Chourio – have worked in Mitchell’s favor in this regard, which he admits, but there’s still work to do with a .205 average and .571 OPS in 54 total plate appearances in June.
“Brice [Turang] and Sal [Frelick] had to go through the same thing as well,” Mitchell said. “It’s part of it and comes with the territory, so I’ve never been upset about that. I’ve talked to Murph about it this year and was telling him, ‘I’m good with whatever my role is, but I’m also going to prove to you that I can do that as well.’
“I say that in more of a confident way, giving him the confidence knowing whatever is asked to me, I’m prepared for.”
Mitchell said he isn’t shying away from making diving attempts in the outfield due to his left shoulder issues. And while he will dive back into bases head first, he’s been going feet first and hard whenever he advances on the basepaths.
“I haven’t thought about it for a while,” he said of his shoulder. “I think part of it is reps, just being out there. Early on, it was getting comfortable again. Sure, it’s partly about the shoulder, but you can’t be gone for a year and then come back and just be like, ‘There you go, it’s all there.’
“So, yeah, each day it’s gotten better.”
After poor spring, Garrett Mitchell is winning over manager Pat Murphy
Overall, it’s been a body of work that’s been productive and encouraging, yet still has room for tremendous growth. After an even 200 games in the majors, Mitchell has generated 4.6 wins above replacement, a .251 average, 17 homers, 73 RBI, an OPS of .763 and 29 stolen bases.
Maybe the biggest victory aside from staying healthy this season has been winning over Murphy, who had quite a telling admission after watching him drive in all five of the Brewers’ runs in a victory over the Kansas City Royals on April 4 at Kauffman Stadium.
“I was the first one to believe that Garrett wasn’t ready,” Murphy said at the time. “He had really poor results in spring training, but the front office was really adamant that this guy can be our best player and in a lot of ways I was skeptical.
“It’s really the front office who convinced me that, ‘Hey, look, this is right for our team.'”
Fresh in Murphy’s mind at the time was Mitchell’s .081 batting average and team-high 20 strikeouts in 13 Cactus League games, a performance that more often than not is going to leave out all but the most established players when constructing an opening-day roster.
Even Mitchell fully admits it was an awful spring. But he received an opportunity, took advantage of it and is doing his best to live up to the lofty expectations he’s generated since arriving from UCLA.
“Of course I appreciated [Murphy’s sentiments],” he said. “But I can understand that perspective. It wasn’t like I put my best foot forward in spring training. It wasn’t like I was putting together quality at-bats and doing great stuff. I struck out more than I did anything else.
“But one thing I can appreciate is that that they still believed in me, and they still gave me the shot to prove [myself]. And that’s kind of like where I’m talking about when you miss significant time, the expectation and where you think you should be versus like the reality is sometimes [different].
“It’s hard to not face really elite pitching for a long time and then expect just to come back, yeah. So, I’ve kept the same mindset from the first day until now, and it’s not going to change.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers’ Garrett Mitchell is happy, helping and, most important, healthy
Reporting by Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
