Things were going great for the Milwaukee Brewers just a few days ago.
Maybe too great.
In the latest example of how quickly fortunes can change in the game of baseball, the Central Division leaders – yes, they’re still in the driver’s seat with a 37-23 record and a five-game lead – find themselves dealing with not only consecutive losses for just the second time in the last month but also injuries to two of their key relievers at the outset of a six-game road trip to a pair of challenging environments in Coors Field and Las Vegas Ballpark.
DL Hall and Grant Anderson were forced out of the Brewers’ 12-9 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Thursday afternoon, June 4 in succession – Hall with what appears to be an issue with his left pectoral muscle and Anderson with a right forearm contusion suffered when he was struck by a line drive.
“I say it all the time,” manager Pat Murphy said in the aftermath. “The season, and every season, will give you the full catastrophe.
“The full major-league catastrophe.”
Hall was forced into action far earlier than anyone could have anticipated after Coleman Crow was knocked around to the tune of nine hits and six runs over just 2 ⅓ innings, with Casey Schmitt’s first-pitch home run setting the tone for what would prove to be a wild 3 hours and 21 minutes.
Crow had allowed each of the first four Giants batters to reach base in the third and four of the first five before giving way to Hall, who began by surrendering a sacrifice fly that upped the San Francisco lead to 6-1. He retired five of the next six from there before signaling to the Brewers dugout in the middle of an at-bat against Drew Gilbert.
It was a short conversation on the mound as the left-hander departed with Anderson picking up from there and finishing Gilbert off with a strikeout.
“First time,” said Hall, who’s endured a litany of injuries during his two-plus seasons with Milwaukee, when asked if he’d ever suffered a strain in that area previously. “Just a couple pitches before I came out just felt my pec tighten up. Tried to keep throwing; threw a couple sliders that kind of irritated it a little more and just didn’t want to push it further.
“Tried to at least finish that batter, but they didn’t want me to. Probably a good idea.”
Hall was scheduled to undergo imaging later Thursday night but the early indications are that it’s something that will land him on the injured list, a tough blow for him after developing into one of Murphy’s key bullpen weapons with a 2.03 ERA and a microscopic .140 opponents’ batting average against in 24 appearances (31 innings).
“Obviously super disappointed,” Hall said. “Not ideal. Hopefully it’s nothing crazy and it’ll be short-lived. We’ll see.”
Anderson held the Giants scoreless in the sixth then Jung Hoo Lee and Bryce Eldridge singled off him to start the seventh, with Eldridge’s 89.6-mph liner knocking the right-hander to his knees in pain in the aftermath.
He, like Hall, had to leave the game but received some positive news in the immediate aftermath as X-rays were negative.
“It feels much better already. But nothing’s broken, thankfully,” he said. “Got a couple days to see what it feels like and go from there. Got a good jolt; hit the bone pretty good.
“Luckily it wasn’t (hit) any harder.”
Anderson, also like Hall, has performed admirably in his bullpen role this season to the tune of a 3.16 ERA and WHIP of 1.05 in 25 appearances (25 ⅔ innings). And now with both likely to be unavailable for this weekend’s Rockies series at best and facing stints on the injured list at worst, the Brewers are going to need starters Brandon Sproat, Jacob Misiorowski and Shane Drohan to eat innings at the very least in Colorado’s mile-high launching pad.
“We do a pretty good job of sticking together,” said Anderson. “I’ve got to give some credit to (bullpen coach Charlie Greene) – he’s always telling us to hold the line and next man up. We all play for each other out there in the ‘pen, try to pick each other up.
“It’s just part of the mentality that’s almost bred into you when you get here. ‘Hey, we can make it without somebody because the next guy’s going to step up and do their job until that guy comes back.'”
And indeed, that’s been the case in previous seasons as well as this one, with Quinn Priester having not yet pitched an inning for Milwaukee, Brandon Woodruff pitching just 30 over six starts, key depth piece Logan Henderson now sidelined with a back issue, Angel Zerpa limited to just 12 ⅔ innings out of the bullpen before blowing out his elbow and Jared Koenig still yet to pitch an inning in the majors with his own elbow issue.
And then there’s the broken hands suffered by Jackson Chourio and Andrew Vaughn to start the season, the groin injury that sidelined Christian Yelich for a month and the knee laceration that will ultimately cause Brandon Lockridge to miss more than a month.
Despite all that, the Brewers rode a 19-7 month of May to rise from worst to first in the Central, and now the expectation will be to continue to set the pace in the division even with Hall and Anderson hurting, the rotation still something of a work in progress and the bottom third of the lineup not producing much of anything in the way of meaningful results from game to game.
“This is baseball. This is how it goes. Teams never go 140-20 for a reason,” said Murphy. “The full catastrophe is alive and well.
“It’s a major-league season.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Brewers’ mettle will be shown again as DL Hall, Grant Anderson injured
Reporting by Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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By Todd Rosiak, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel | USA TODAY Network
