This has been the year of the Yoho yo-yo.
After coming into the season being the Milwaukee Brewers’ reigning minor-league pitcher of the year and arguably the top spring training standout, there hasn’t been as much time in the big-league bullpen for Craig Yoho as he or the Brewers would have hoped.
Yet the 25-year-old right-hander, added to the roster as part of expanded rosters on Sept. 1 alongside shortstop Joey Ortiz, is back in Milwaukee for his fourth stint with the Brewers this year, hopeful to contribute more this time around.
Across seven games with the Brewers, Yoho has a 8.22 earned run average while walking nine to only five strikeouts, a far cry from the minor-league dominance that landed him firmly on the prospect radar.
“He hasn’t been great,” manager Pat Murphy said. “But I have high expectations for him. I think he’s a guy willing to make adjustments. I think he is also part of the future and we’d love to see him gain some confidence. I don’t think he has a ton of confidence up here. You have to get to that point – you have to earn it.”
Two individual rough outings have been largely responsible for Yoho being on the Nashville-to-Milwaukee shuttle rather than getting any semblance of lengthy time in the majors.
The first outing was on May 1 against the White Sox, his fifth outing of a nine-game road trip, as he allowed five runs and walked four in an inning of work. After a brief call-up for a doubleheader on July 2, Yoho returned July 28 and quickly got into a game at home against the Chicago Cubs and couldn’t close out a four-run game in the ninth because he walked two batters with two outs.
Upon his return to Class AAA Nashville, Yoho did what he’s done the whole time in the minors: dominate. In 11 ⅓ innings, he allowed two earned runs while striking out 16 and holding hitters to a .154 average. That’s a whole different stage than the big leagues, though, Murphy reminded reporters, and he wants to see Yoho produce at this level to gain his necessary confidence.
“Confidence is very similar to bad breath,” Murphy said. “You can try to give it to someone else, but really you can’t. It comes from within.”
As Yoho has experienced ups and downs this year, it’s worth remembering he’s still relatively new to pitching. A converted hitter and, later, two-way player in his college career, Yoho didn’t pitch until his fifth year of college in 2023 at Indiana University.
“Honestly being so new to pitching, this has been a good learning experience (with) things I haven’t gotten to experience being so new,” Yoho said. “The ups and downs of being in the big leagues, the only way to learn it is to go through it. Being sent up, sent down, taxi squad, you name it, I’ve done it this year.
“…A lot of these guys that you watch on TV play, they’ve een pitching since they were 10 years old. I started two, three years ago. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t experienced in a game yet or I’m still learning about myself as a pitcher.”
Some of those things are small, such as where to stand on the mound or learning how to sequence to hitters. Others – like commanding the ball – are bigger.
After walking just 3.6 batters per nine innings last year across three levels of the minors, Yoho has struggled to find the zone consistently in his cups of coffee with the Brewers. There’s no question for the Brewers that his wiffle-ball stuff can play in the major leagues; he just needs to be spotting the ball better to let it do its magic.
“The more you can be in-zone, the more they’re in swing mode,” Yoho said of what he’s learned early in his MLB career. “That gets you strike-to-ball pitches and swing-and-miss rather than a take. It’s little things like that, just setting the tone and being on the attack. Rather than feeling like I’m the one playing defense on the mound, I’m playing offense on the mound. Whether I can score a run or not, you have to have that mindset.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Craig Yoho, Joey Ortiz join Brewers as MLB rosters expand
Reporting by Curt Hogg, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
